


It's Probably Me

by artsypolarbear



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cop Anya, Criminal Raven, Drama, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Femslash, Hurt/Comfort, Ranya-centric, Raven is a sassy lil shit, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2018-09-15 00:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9212408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artsypolarbear/pseuds/artsypolarbear
Summary: Anya really does not like Raven. Not one bit. She's annoying and infuriating, and, to top it all off, she's a gang member with a tendency to get arrested far too often.So what if Anya meets with her periodically for sex?It's just sex for her. And, besides, it's just sex for Raven too.She doesn't like her. She doesn't care about her life. She doesn't care that sometimes she shows up with mysterious bruises on her skin, or with a black eye, or a broken wrist; she doesn't care that sometimes she sees her on the streets and she looks like a completely different person; she doesn't care, she shouldn't care...right?





	1. and the stars looked down

**Author's Note:**

> wouldya look at that
> 
> a new year, a new me
> 
> i'm back with new things but i'll update old things soon too

“So arrest me then, officer.”

Anya shot the brunette a glare and did just that. The young woman was annoying, had annoyed her ever since she’d opened her mouth, and now, with her all up in her face, Anya couldn’t take it.

And besides, she had just caught her attempting to steal a car.

The fact that the brunette seemed to want to be arrested confused her, but she didn’t care too much. Swiftly, quickly enough to surprise her, she grabbed the brunette’s wrist and whirled her around, bending her over the hood of the car to better restrain her while she brought out the handcuffs. So what if it was a little excessive – Anya didn’t like smug faces and criminals who thought they were untouchable.

“Oh, so officer Faye likes it rough-“

Anya gave the brunette a little shove. “Shut up.”

“Make me.”

“No,” Anya grumbled. “Also, it’s detective Faye.”

The brunette just smirked.

Anya wasn’t really having it. She read the woman her rights and stuck her in the car before finally turning to look for her partner.

“Lex?”

“The other one got away, in another car,” panted her partner, Lexa, appearing from around the corner. “But I know who it is, so we’ll get him. You got the girl?”

“Yeah.”

“I think I've arrested her before- not so sure about the name. The snarky brunette."

Anya shrugged. "Didn’t give me her name. Said that ‘I should know’ because apparently she’s famous.”

“Oh, yeah, it's her.”

“So she was right.”

“More or less. Not sure it’s a good sort of fame, but…”

“Also, she seemed to like it when I bent her over the hood and cuffed her.”

Lexa chuckled as she walked past Anya. “I know many women who would like that, especially from you…”

Anya just sighed and got in the car. “Oh shut up and get in, we’ve got work to do.”

They’d sat in the car for just a few moments when a voice chipped in from the back seat.

“You do realize I can hear you when you talk right outside the car, right?”

Both Lexa and Anya glanced at the back seat. Anya wanted to bury her face in her hands, but focused instead on starting the car and driving off, while Lexa looked like she was about to burst into laughter.

“You think I’m snarky, huh?”

Anya shot at the brunette a look through the rear-view mirror. “None of your business.”

“Well, seeing as you were talking about me, I’d think it is my business…?”

Anya just sighed and ignored her for the rest of the drive. Once at the station, she took her by the arm and began leading her towards her desk.

"No need to get handsy," the brunette chuckled, "I'm not going anywhere."

"Shut up."

Ten minutes later, after she’d gotten the papers ready, she went back – to an empty desk.

She had about three seconds worth of panic before Lexa piped in from across the table.

“Chief Kane grabbed your arrestee.”

“Why?”

“Dunno, said he had some questions.”

That was when the door to the interrogation room opened and the chief’s head popped out. “Hey, Faye – pop over here for a sec, will you?”

Anya did as told, and on entering the room, found the brunette sitting – no, lounging – on the chair, her feet propped up on the table, her hands uncuffed and an insufferable smirk on her face.

“What-?”

That’s all Anya managed to stammer before Chief Kane gestured her to sit down and listen.

“Why is she uncuffed?”

The brunette raised her eyebrows and managed to make herself look even more annoying, but said nothing, leaving the explaining for Kane.

“This is Raven Reyes. She’s a confidential informant.”

Anya looked back at the brunette. “Her?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Kane repeated, “She’s part of the Azgeda investigation.”

“Why her?”

“You do know I’m right here, right? I can hear you.”

Anya glanced at the woman again and shrugged. “I do, but I’m talking to my boss. Not you.”

“No need to be rude,” Raven said, shifting a little in her chair. “I’ve got all day. Do your talking.”

Kane sighed. “Listen, Faye, the thing is that Mitchell was called upstate for a bit longer than we anticipated, and now there’s an opening on the team.”

“And you thought about me?”

“Yes, and you’re either going to take the job or then you’ll have to sign a disclosure agreement guaranteeing that you won’t reveal Miss Reyes’s status as a CI.”

Anya thought about it for a score of three seconds before nodding. “Yeah, sure, I’m in.”

She would’ve been stupid not to do it. The Azgeda was an elusive gang based in their city, with connections country-wide, and the station had been working for years to pin them down and get rid of them for good. Thus far, there had been little progress, but it was a fascinating case – one which Anya was dying to get her hands on.

“Great. So, just take down whatever Reyes here has to tell, and then let her go.”

“Let her go? She tried to steal a car-“

“No, so far as I understand it, she was  _ with _ someone who attempted to steal a car, and this someone ran away – she was just a bystander, really. We can't charge her with anything.  Right?”

Anya frowned. “Is that legal?”

“We have no actual proof that she attempted to steal that car, other than your word – and it’s better to have her on the streets gathering information than sitting in jail, right?”

“....right.”

“Good. Come to my office once you’re done, and I’ll catch you up.”

Kane left, leaving Anya alone with the brunette, who at the moment was looking at her with a smug face so perfectly annoying Anya almost wanted to smack her. She didn’t, of course, but the urge was there.

“Must be annoying, having to let me go,” the brunette smirked. “Having to bend the rules…”

“Let’s just get this over with,” Anya sighed. “You said you had info?”

“Aren’t you even a little curious about who I am?”

“No.”

“Aw, come on, detective Faye – not even a little bit?”

Seeing there was no way she’d get her work done before she indulged the brunette, Anya sighed and set her note pad down. “Fine. Tell me.”

“Ask me.”

“What?”

The brunette rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “You’re no fun.”

“I’m working.”

“I can see that,” she chuckled. “Well, I’m Raven Reyes, as you know. I’m part of the crew – Azgeda, I mean.”

Anya had figured that much from the tattoo on Raven’s arm, but said nothing as she waited to see whether she’d keep talking.

“And I’m not a snitch,” Raven continued. “Just looking out for my own interests.”

“By putting your life on the line.”

“Eh, not that big of a deal.”

“Could we get back to work now, Raven?”

In an instant, the brunette’s look turned sour, and she leaned over the table to look at Anya. “It’s Reyes.”

The sudden coldness surprised Anya, who, after a moment, shrugged and said: “Sure, noted. Now, can we get back to work?”

 

* * *

 

 

_ two weeks later _

Anya was sat at her desk at work, as per usual. A half-finished coffee sat by her computer, as did an unopened sandwich from lunch, which had been three hours ago. She was getting a little hungry, but was too focused to care - the last thing she needed were distractions. Chief Kane had been very clear that she had to finish her report by that night, and she was determined not to mess up.

It was at that moment that she glimpsed three officers escorting four people into the room, all cuffed, all looking angry and differing amounts of drunk. The stench of booze wafted to Anya’s nose, and she shifted in her seat, annoyed at the disturbance.

“Hey, Faye?”

Chief Kane’s voice drew Anya from her focused state, and she immediately perked up. “Yes sir?”

“Reyes is in room five.”

Anya audibly groaned when she heard that, and her boss chuckled. “I know that she’s a piece of work. Just…do it. I’ll get Blake to finish your report, she was part of the case too.”

“Thank you,” Anya muttered. “But I’d rather do the report.”

“I know…but your job’s in room five.”

Anya nodded. "You're right."

Reyes was looking more like hell than what she usually did. It was obvious that she wasn’t entirely sober – it wasn’t just the stench of liquor, it was also the fact that her eyes couldn’t focus, and that she was swaying just the slightest bit as she stood in one corner of the room, leaning against the wall. She hadn't said a word when Anya had come in, or made any move towards the chair when Anya sat down - no, she just stayed there, twirling a lock of hair between her fingers, watching Anya with a look that unsettled her.

“How about you take a seat?” Anya suggested, gesturing towards the chair. 

“How about you bend me over again?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Anya sighed. “Reyes, sit down.”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Fine, your choice.”

Anya put her notepad onto the table and pulled out her pen, ready for whatever info she might have.

“Do you ever have fun?”

The question surprised Anya, and for a brief moment, she didn’t even know what to say.

“Hey, you. Detective. I asked a question.”

“I do have fun, just not when I’m on duty,” Anya frowned. “Now, do you have anything useful to say, or did you just accidentally get arrested this time?”

“You know I don’t do that,” Raven hummed, pushing herself off of the wall and walking over to stand behind Anya. “I’m goo-od. And sneaky.”

She hiccupped and placed her hands on the back of Anya’s chair, leaning a little bit forward so that she just almost touched her. “Nia’s buying a new venue.”

“Where?”

“A motel, by the water. Greenbay Motel.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“Drug trafficking?”

“People.”

“Ah. And you’re sure?”

“Yup. I heard it with my own ears.”

Raven had gotten back up again, and was walking around the room aimlessly. 

“Oh, and that girl – cheerleader, whatever –“

“Jenny Westell?”

“Yeah, her – not us.”

“Your people didn’t kill her and dump her by the river?”

“No, we didn’t,” Raven said, shaking her head lazily. “Not us.”

“That’s…good to know.”

It wasn’t too valuable a piece of information, but it was something.

“Oh, also – keep me in jail for a night or two. You’ve let me go free a little too much over the past month. They're getting suspicious.”

“You want to go to jail?”

The brunette shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll get a decent nights’ sleep.”

“How about a week? For petty theft?”

“I dunno, you pick,” Raven shrugged. She then coughed, stumbled, and almost ran into the table, only barely catching herself in time. “Just arrest me, officer Hottie.”

She let out a laugh and turned around, and Anya was left to stare at her in complete confusion. She chose not to say anything, and focused instead on writing up the arrest report and all the necessary paperwork.

“Could you sign here and here, please?”

Raven came over, leaned in dangerously close over Anya’s shoulder, and signed the papers. For a brief moment, Anya felt her arm resting on her shoulder, and for some reason, felt very tense.

“Okay, thanks,” she said once the papers were done. “Now let’s get-“

“Cuff me.”

“What?”

Raven rolled her eyes and offered her hands. “Don’t forget to cuff me, Frowny.”

“Frowny?”

“Yeah, Frowny.”

Anya chose not to comment, and instead cuffed the woman before leading her out of the room and leaving her in the hands of other officers. 

What bothered her, what left her unable to focus, were the last words that the brunette had whispered to her just before they left the interrogation room.

_ “You’ll hear from me.” _

 

* * *

 

 

And she did hear from her - a week and a half later.

It was just a phone call. It was late, Anya was on her way home from work, and the number was unknown – and so she declined it.

When the caller kept trying, she finally pulled her car over on the side of the road and answered.

“Anya Faye speaking.”

“Come to the empty lot on Cumberland Lane. The eastern side of town. I need to talk.”

“Who is this?”

The caller chuckled before answering. “Reyes. Come.”

Anya did not like being bossed around. She also did not like being hung up on, and yet, Raven Reyes had just done both of those things. She had already been tired, and now, she was annoyed. Extremely so. But she saw that she really had no other choice than to go, at least to just see what the call was about.

Anya found the lot after two missed tries. It was hard, navigating in the dark, in an area of town she didn’t know and which apparently had no street lights or signs. When she finally caught sight of Raven in her headlights, she slowed down, only to notice that she was gesturing for her to drive into the lot.

“For privacy,” she told her through the open window. “A strange car would be noticed. Especially one like…yours. Just park it in the corner.”

Anya couldn’t tell whether it was meant as a compliment or not, but agreed that her almost brand-new Audi would stick out in the neighborhood. She shrugged it off and drove onto the lot, to the corner, so that it was basically impossible to see from the street. Raven followed along, and stood outside the car, waiting, after Anya had stopped and turned off all the lights.

She got out of the car warily, realizing only now that she maybe should have told someone where she was going – but it was too late now, and, if it was only Raven, Anya was sure she could overpower her.

If it came to that.

“I’m not going to kill you, you know,” Raven said. She was leaning against the side of the car, looking over the river, with her trademark smirk on her lips. 

“I didn’t think you would,” Anya grumbled. “Now tell me, what’s so important?”

“Oh, I didn’t actually want to talk.”

“Excuse me?”

The brunette turned her head to look at Anya with a sly grin. “You’re hot.”

Anya simply frowned. “So?”

“So…I wanna fuck.”

“What?”

Raven didn’t repeat what she’d said. She just raised her eyebrows suggestively and let her eyes run over Anya’s body in a way that made her shiver.

“You called me here for sex?”

“Yes,” Raven said, “Fuck me, detective Faye. I know you want to.”

“I don’t-“

“As if. I’m not blind. Or stupid.”

“No, I really don’t want to fuck you, Reyes,” Anya snapped. “You annoy me and you always manage to get on my nerves, and the last thing I’d want to do is fuck you – I could be home right now, resting, I’m tired and you called me here on a booty call and it’s just so annoying I can’t even-“ 

She stopped herself, let out a long sigh, and turned to look away from the brunette whose grin had only gotten wider the more she spoke.

“You don’t have to like me to fuck me, you know.”

Anya didn’t answer, but Raven kept trying. She hadn't faltered once - she had something she wanted, and she was used to getting what she wanted.

“Do something wild, detective Faye – I  _ dare _ you.”

“This-“ Anya had begun before she turned around. But when she did, she found Raven far closer than she’d been a moment before, and was startled into silence – for a brief second.   “This isn’t wild, this is just stupid. I’m leaving.”

Raven stepped out of her way. “Fine. Go.”

Anya got into her car and got her keys into the ignition before pausing. Raven was still standing outside the car, arms crossed, weight resting on one hip more than the other. Even though it was dark, Anya knew she was watching her, and could almost see the smirk on her lips.

She really should’ve left.

_ I dare you. _

But the snarky brunette had annoyed her one too many times. And so Anya got out of the car, walked over to her, and, without another word, pushed her up against the car and kissed her. It wasn’t soft, it wasn't gentle, and it was definitely not meant to be. All Anya wanted to do was to wipe the grin off of her face, and, when she pulled away, she almost thought she’d succeeded.

Almost.

But then the smirk came back, and Anya almost groaned when she realized that Raven Reyes had outsmarted her. Hell, the girl had figured her out, had known that Anya would not only show up but that she would go for it – and it annoyed Anya even more.

“Oh, yes, officer,” Raven breathed into her ear. “I knew you weren’t boring.”

“Detective,” Anya growled. “And shut up.”

Anya knew what she’d say next.  _ Make me. _

And so she didn’t even give her a chance to say it.

 

* * *

 

A good forty-five minutes later, and Anya was sitting on the passenger seat of her car, more or less naked, with a very naked Raven Reyes straddling her lap, panting, having just finished what had turned to very rough sex.

The windows had fogged up, as had Anya’s mind. She was exhausted but in the best way, and for a brief moment, she just sat there, enjoying the feeling of Raven’s waist beneath her hand. The tingling feeling of the bite mark on her neck was making her head spin, as was the fact that Anya knew, simply from looking at the brunette, that she'd thoroughly fucked her - and hard.

“Knew it, you like it rough,” Raven teased. Though she was visibly spent, she still retained her personality, and Anya was quickly reminded of all the reasons why she disliked her.

“Get out,” Anya grumbled in response. “I’ve got work tomorrow.”

“Not like I intended to stay," Raven replied coolly.

“You called me here for sex. We had sex. Anything more that you want?”

The brunette just looked at her mischievously. “Nope. Nothing.”

They both knew that, though Anya had been very much in control in the forty-five minutes before, the fact remained that Raven knew how to push Anya’s buttons to get what she wanted.

Anya hated that fact.

Raven – well, she was amused by it.

But Anya was right. Raven had gotten what she’d come for. And so she got out of the car, and got dressed as quickly as she could, and before Anya could even realize, she was gone. Disappeared into the night over a fence, leaving Anya behind to dress herself and to drive home.

The instant she got home she took a shower. Everything on her smelled like Raven Reyes – it was a distinctive scent, not at all unpleasant, but it wasn’t something Anya wanted to smell on herself. She wanted to feel like herself, in all aspects, and what she’d just done was so far from what she would do that she felt uncomfortable.

But it had also been exactly what she’d needed. There was tension between her and the brunette, she knew it, and clearly, so did she. She wasn’t bad-looking, not at all – her slender and athletic body did please Anya’s eye, as did her face, with strong and distinct features, and lips that both annoyed and enticed her.

The problem was her personality. She was so…annoying. Infuriating, really. Anya admired that she was a CI, even though it was clearly for selfish reasons, but the fact that she also kept getting arrested for pickpocketing and other little crimes showed that she didn’t really have a regard for law – obnoxiously so.

Of course, some of that might’ve been to keep up the charade for the gang, but still, Anya could tell that Raven wasn’t entirely good. The fact that she just didn’t seem to care – well, that annoyed her the most.

But now she wasn’t so annoyed with Raven. All the factors were still there, but the tension…it was gone.

Not that she liked her. She certainly did not.

But she had been right about one thing. Anya really didn't have to like her to fuck her.

And she had to admit that grabbing Raven’s hair, roughly, to kiss her with equal roughness, had felt great. 


	2. in a stranger's coat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops i did it again
> 
> you guys don't even know how good this is and how good it'll get but you'll find out soon

“You’re late, Frow-“

Anya didn’t wait for Raven to finish her sentence. In truth, she didn’t want her to finish. The nickname she’d been given annoyed her, everything about Raven annoyed her, especially the fact that she was so arrogant and so annoying and always _so_ right about Anya. Even now, without Anya even having to hint at it, Raven had called exactly on the second she’d thought about her – she never asked how Raven knew. But she did.

And so Anya did what she always did. She grabbed her roughly and pushed her into the wall, turning the surprised whimper into a pleased moan within seconds. She was in control, she drank in the power that Raven so willingly gave her, and, for a brief moment, felt as though her head were spinning from pure lust.

When Anya fucked Raven through into her first orgasm, Raven’s nails dragged scratch marks all down her back. Anya didn’t care that some of them stung, didn’t even think to check whether she’d broken skin – the pain only added to the pleasure of seeing Raven’s eyes so dark and full of lust, of tasting her need and want on the tip of her tongue; Anya was getting as much as she was giving, and was giving as much as she possibly could. She drowned her exhaustion in favour of pleasure, poured out all her frustrations into the energy that kept her drawn to the brunette in her arms – she didn’t stop, she didn’t even think. It was pure, and it was simple, and it was easy. Not a word was spoken, not that Raven would’ve had much of a chance to – when Anya’s mouth wasn’t on hers, she was usually on her knees, making good use of her mouth in other ways.

This time, it ended with Anya holding Raven up against the wall of the alley, withdrawing her hand slowly from between her thighs as she waited a brief moment to let herself and the girl in her arms breathe.

And then, she put her down, and within minutes, Raven was dressed and gone.

She never said anything afterwards. Anya wasn’t sure if she was capable of speaking after all that she’d done to her, and was proud. Any occasion where Raven was speechless was a rare one, after all.

Weeks had gone by, and a cycle had been established. Raven ended up at the police station on a bi-weekly basis, and spent nights in jail for various reasons ranging from drunken misdemeanors to fighting and the like, and Anya almost always had to deal with her. Raven was always her annoying self, calling her Frowny in private and officer Nitpick in public, and Anya remained her grumbling and irritated self whether she was in private or public.

There was always a certain point where Anya started thinking about it again. She wasn’t always thinking about pushing Raven into a wall and taking her as she pleased, no – at first, she rarely thought of it. But, at almost steady intervals, the thoughts would come back, like an itch that just wouldn’t go away, and she’d find herself unable to focus on anything other than the idea of finding the brunette again.

Thankfully, it seemed that Raven either noticed this or felt the same way, because Anya never had to suffer too long before she got a call from her. It was always Raven calling Anya, always from a pay phone, and never the other way around. It was always a different location, and always in Anya’s car, or at least in it’s near vicinity. 

And they never spoke afterwards.

Not many things were constant with Raven, and Anya would’ve never even thought that she trusted her in any way – but that one thing, those calls, those Anya knew Raven would deliver on. No matter what, Anya knew there’d be a next call.

Anya was always in charge. It had become clear that Raven enjoyed that, wanted it, and, well, Anya was more than glad to take control. She had grown better at surprising Raven, and had learned certain things about her. For one, Raven was far more submissive than she would have thought. She definitely had a thing for being bossed around and pinned down.

Anya of course had her fun with that. She had her fun with rough grabs and hard kisses, and, of course, with props – her cuffs, for example, had become a staple in their meetings. Raven practically begged her to cuff her, never verbally, but Anya had learned to recognize that one look in her eye that spoke all that she refused to say. And god, did she use that look to her advantage.

Anya always took revenge on whatever Raven had annoyed her with before. It was a balanced exchange – Raven got to ridicule Anya as much as she pleased, and Anya took her dignity back by fucking her into oblivion.

She was particularly proud of the fact that she had learned how to turn Raven into a hazy-eyed mess. It was satisfying, being able to render her speechless for once, and, after a few times, Anya realized it was also severely addictive. It gave her a rush, something she hadn’t ever felt before, and it was that rush that she sought each time she got in her car and drove off to a new location.

As the weeks went by, she’d begun getting along with Raven - somewhat. She could now tolerate her, at least. She still called her Reyes, though in her mind she’d always called her Raven – calling people by their last names was strange for Anya, and she might’ve even, secretly, thought that Raven’s name was quite pretty. Not that it mattered.

And besides, Anya still disliked her. She knew her better now, and knew how to get along with her, which was vital given they had to work together almost every week, but that didn’t mean they were friends - anything but.

Four months passed quicker than she would’ve expected. They’d call each other names and then fuck, and then leave, never exchanging words after – and then repeat, do it all over again, over and over, never tiring of coming back for yet another round. It was almost comfortable, the routine they’d settled in – though it wasn’t a routine. It was nothing like a routine. Sometimes it was at midnight on a Monday in an empty parking lot twenty miles out of town; sometimes it was at four in the morning on a Thursday, in an alley behind the City Hall. Sometimes it was at dusk on a Tuesday evening on the riverbank, it was never in the same place, and it was never at the same time.

Anya had never known how many secluded places her city had, not until she met Raven.

She had also never known that she was the type for quickies with someone who she knew nothing about. She hadn’t ever known that she would settle on not knowing anything about her, about Raven, that she would accept that she had no means of contacting her – she would’ve never guessed that she would care so little that Raven called all the shots, that Raven had the power to decide when and where they would meet, no, she hadn’t even been able to imagine that someone like Raven would even come into her life, not like she had.

And yet, she had. Raven was, in some strange way, a part of her life. And as the months passed, it became clear for Anya that there was no going back.

Not that she would've wanted to go back.

 

 

* * *

 

Anya was at home, having just put on her pajamas and made herself a cup of tea, when her phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Tennis court on Garden St.”

“No, Reyes, not today.”

There was a moment of silence.

Anya had never said no before.

“Why not?”

“I’m at home, I just made myself tea, and I’m too tired to drive.”

Anya waited to hear something from Raven, but when a moment later the line went dead, she realized she’d hung up.

“What an asshole,” she muttered, taking a sip from her tea and crossing her legs under her. She reached for her book, set her phone down, and decided that she would definitely not think about Raven Reyes for the rest of the night.

Half an hour later, after she’d dozed off while reading, she was woken by a sound. She was too sleepy to register it at first, and so thought she’d dreamt it – but then she heard it again. It was a knock, three to be precise, but they didn’t come from her door.

It took another two times for Anya to realize it was coming from a window in her bedroom.

She stumbled over to her room, where she found Raven standing on the fire escape outside her window, huddling in the pouring rain, looking more or less like a drenched rat.

It took a little work for Anya to get the window open, and when she did, she let slip a bunch of startled questions.

“What the fuck? Why are you here-?”

“Let me in, it’s cold and raining,” Raven snapped, and without even waiting for permission, slipped past Anya into her bedroom.

Anya pulled the curtains across the window and went over to turn on the lights. She still felt like she might’ve been dreaming, her head was spinning a little, and now she had Raven, standing in the middle of her bedroom.

“Why are you here?”

Raven was dripping water onto her floor, her wet hair stuck to her face, and her clothes were drenched and more or less see-through. She was shivering a little, her arms crossed tightly across her chest, and she was glaring at Anya with a mixture of annoyance and frustration in her eyes.

“You know why,” Raven muttered through clattering teeth. “I just didn’t expect it to be raining.”

“Are you okay-“

“I’m fine.”

“How did you get here? How do you even know where I live?”

“Oh, please. You think I can’t figure something like that out?”

“No, tell me.” Anya crossed her arms across her chest and waited for an answer. 

“You do realize you never even asked how I got your number, right?”

That was true. Anya had never even thought of it, but now realized that she had never given her number to Raven. Nor was it on any public database, since she was a police officer.

In fact, all her personal details, such as an address or a phone number, were secret.

Raven let out a chuckle when she watched everything click in Anya’s head. “You know, you’re smart, but sometimes you miss blatantly obvious things.”

“Okay, tell me then. How did you get my number?”

“You can tell your boss that the police department’s database is laughingly easy to get into.”

“What?”

“Okay, maybe not easy for idiots like you, but a piece of cake for me,” Raven shrugged. “I hacked into your system and got all the info I needed. That’s it.”

“That’s creepy.”

“Not _that_ creepy.”

“You more or less broke into my house.”

“No I didn’t, you let me in.”

“You _barged_ in.”

Raven took a step closer and jutted her chin. “Are you complaining?”

Anya looked her up and down, taking her time to answer, knowing it would annoy the brunette. “Actually, yes.”

“What, you’re tired? At ten p.m.?”

“I’ve been up since six, working. So yes, I am.”

“So do you want me to go?”

Anya really almost would have said yes, were it not for the slight falter in Raven’s voice when she said it. It was just that slight falter that made Anya see something that she was almost certain Raven didn’t even know herself.

_She needs this._

Anya didn’t know why. She didn’t know enough about Raven to even guess. But she saw that Raven wanted to stay, and, after a long sigh, shrugged and said: “Fine. But on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You take those clothes off and throw them in the dryer.”

Raven frowned. “I don’t need you to care about me.”

“I don’t. But I don’t want your wet clothes soaking onto my floor while we fuck.”

“Geez, princess,” Raven said, rolling her eyes. “It’s just a floor.”

But she did do as said, and when she walked out of the bathroom fully nude, Anya couldn’t say she didn’t want it.

She did _definitely_ want it.

She got Raven onto her bed and pinned her down, and for a moment all was quiet.

Well, not really quiet. There were moans and whimpers and gasps, all sorts of noises, but not a single word was spoken for a long while. But then, as Anya shifted her weight and pressed down on Raven’s wrist with her hand, the brunette grimaced and let slip a pained groan. Immediately when she heard it, Anya stopped what she was doing and sat up, confused and worried she’d hurt her.

“Did I do something?”

Raven groaned and sat up as well, and tried to pull Anya back to her – but instead, Anya looked at her wrist, and saw it was swelled up and bruised.

“You’re not fine,” Anya growled, almost angry that Raven had lied. “What’s that on your wrist?”

The brunette glared at her and pulled her wrist away. “Nothing.”

“Ra-“

“Okay, fine, they’re bruises. You’re not the only one I get rough with-“

Anya didn’t know Raven very well, but she knew that she lied right there and then. It wasn’t even a good lie, nor was it well executed - it was a half-assed attempt at one, and Anya saw right through it.

“Let me see.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Raven.”

Raven didn’t correct Anya. Instead, she just gritted her teeth and looked away, clearly trying to regain her composure.

“It’s fine,” she finally said, quietly, in a very low voice. “I’m fine. This is just part of my life, okay? I mess up, I get a warning. It’s normal.”

“You’re hurt. That’s not normal.”

“I can barely feel it.”

“Really? So if I grabbed your wrist-“

“Don’t do that," Raven snapped, pulling her wrist away and cradling against her chest.

“Raven, you’re hurt.”

“So?”

Anya didn’t have an answer for that. Up until that point, she hadn’t really thought of Raven as anything more than just someone she had sex with. But now she was sitting on her bed, and the more Anya looked, the more injuries she saw - bruises on her ribs, on her legs, a burn on her arm...there were too many for all of them to be accidents. In addition to all that, she looked frail, lacking confidence despite her good attempt to hide it, and the fact that she seemed unlike herself as Anya knew her confused her the most.

Not to mention the fact she hadn’t corrected Anya when she’d called her Raven. Twice.

“You need to see a doctor about your wrist. To get it set, if it’s broken.”

“You know what, I’m leaving,” Raven growled. “Way to kill the mood, Faye.”

The way she said Faye felt like a punch to Anya’s gut.

But Anya just sat there, stunned, for the five minutes it took Raven to get her damp clothes out of the dryer, get dressed, and get out the same way she got in. She was still sitting on her bed ten minutes after the window had slammed shut, surprised and unsure of whether she should have tried to stop her – but it was too late.

She was long gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't forget the kudos and comments, please and thank you


	3. who'd watch for me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i fucking love this fic you guys don't even know what's coming but i do and it's so good

“Anya, are you okay?”

“Hmh? Yeah, I’m fine-“ Anya was cut off by a yawn. “Just tired.”

“Yeah, you’ve said that for two weeks now. What’s up?”

Anya knew Lexa well enough to know that she wouldn’t just give up.

“I’ve been a little sick,” she confessed. It was true, actually – she had been out of work for a few days, even had the doctor’s note to prove it, but she hadn’t been sick for all of the two weeks that Lexa was talking about.

It had been over a month since she’d last seen Raven, and she was worried. Being worried annoyed Anya, especially when the object of her worry was so insufferable, and so capable of making her feel helpless. Anya had no way to get into touch with Raven, no way of knowing whether she was ignoring her or dead – all she could do was wait.

Which she wasn’t doing. She wasn’t waiting for Raven.

What was there to wait for, anyway?

“Just a little sick?”

“I don’t know,” Anya sighed. “The case isn’t moving anywhere, and I’ve been bored – a lot of things, really.”

Lexa eyed her for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Mm.”

“You wanna hang out some night?”

“Hang out?”

“Yes, hang out. As in human contact, with me, and maybe Clarke and Octavia and someone else-“

Anya grimaced, and Lexa let out a laugh. “Or just me. Baby steps.”

“Thank you,” Anya sighed. “I’m just not too comfortable around your friends.”

“Do you have any?”

“Hmm?”

“Friends, I mean,” Lexa said. “Other than me, and my friends.”

“No, not really. Lincoln, maybe.”

“Your gym buddy?”

Anya shrugged. “A buddy’s a friend, right?”

“Shh – you hear that?”

Both of them fell silent, and, after a brief moment of listening, Lexa whispered: “I’ll go around, you check the alley. I think I heard something.”

Once she was off, Anya headed down into the alley, hand resting on her gun, ready to pull it out if needed. Her eyes watched every shadow and corner carefully, and she was so quiet she could practically hear her own breaths.

They’d been staking out a suspected Azgeda hideout for a good while now, and this was the first sign of any life anywhere near them.

The sound repeated again, this time much closer – it sounded strange, like a muffled kitten, and it took Anya a long while to locate it’s source.

When she looked under a pile of cardboard boxes, she would’ve never expected to find Raven there. No, this was definitely the last place she would’ve thought to find her – and yet, there she was, huddled in one corner, head resting against her knees, completely unaware that she was being watched.

And she was crying.

The fact that she was crying surprised Anya the most, and for a long while she just stood there, unsure of what to do.

“Reyes?”

That was when Raven froze. Her shoulders tensed up, and she slowly raised her head to look at Anya. The moment she recognized her, she wiped at her eyes quickly and scrambled up to her feet, clearly embarrassed to have been seen. The look in her eyes turned into a fiery glare, and Anya almost took a step back from sheer surprise.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Anya shrugged, not taking her eyes off of Raven. “I’m working.”

“Of course,” Raven muttered, the tone of her voice somehow bitter. “I’m gonna go.”

Anya stopped her from passing her and looked at her with a frown. “Look, are you okay?”

“Why do you care?”

“I’m not an emotionless robot,” Anya hissed. “That’s why.”

“That’s a bullshit reason. You’re just horny. I know it’s been a while and you need to blow off some steam-”

“I’m not.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not that either.”

Raven inhaled sharply. “You’re a bitch, you know that right?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. You’re a cold-hearted bitch.”

“Says you,” Anya replied, offended beyond belief. “You’re annoying and infuriatingly idiotic and just- you know, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care.”

“No, tell me. What am I?”

“Selfish.”

“So are you.”

Anya let go of Raven’s arm and sighed. “You know what? Go. Just go.”

When Lexa came around the building a moment later, she found Anya standing there alone, looking tense and angry – furious, even. Anya then refused to speak for the remainder of the day, and went home after a short and curt goodbye, leaving Lexa to wonder what had happened in the five minutes she’d been gone.

“There’s something worrying her,” she decided later, when she was speaking to Clarke about her day. “Something’s weighing her down, and giving her a hard time, and she’s not talking about it, and – Clarke, you listening?”

“Yes, Lexa, I’m listening.”

“It just sounded like you were sleeping.”

“I’m almost sleeping, but not quite,” Clarke yawned. “It’s been a long day.”

Lexa sighed and snuggled closer to her. “It just…it’s frustrating. She won’t talk.”

“Maybe she doesn’t know how. Or maybe she’s not ready, yet.”

“I just don’t like seeing her so tired. I mean, she’s been better than ever for the past few months, and then a few weeks ago she did a full 180 and went back to being broody and annoyed all the time. I even saw her _smile_ a few times last month, but now she’s just been grumbling and quiet.”

Clarke’s hand reached over and stroked Lexa’s cheek gently. “I know. But there’s nothing you can do about it now, babe. So just try to rest, okay?”

Lexa nodded and turned to her side, but before going to sleep, she took her phone and sent Anya a text.

“Just in case,” she mumbled, laying her head on her pillow and falling asleep. “In case she’s feeling like crap.”

 

* * *

 

 

_(Lexa, 10:19pm)_

**You know you can talk to me anytime, right?**

Anya stared at her phone screen for a long while. Her thumb hovered over the call button, and, for a good while, she genuinely considered calling Lexa.

But instead she just typed a new message and sent it.

_(Anya, 10:22pm)_

**I do. Thanks.**

It was the weekend. She finally had some time to relax, to unwind – but she couldn’t get the encounter from earlier that day out of her head.

Raven had been crying. Anya still barely knew the woman, despite having had some sort of a sexual relationship with her for months, and seeing her crying, well – it had triggered an instinctive response in her.

She had wanted to go over and comfort her. It was perfectly natural, that was Anya told herself, purely instinct and nothing more.

“Just instinct,” she sighed as she propped her feet up on the coffee table. “And besides, I don’t care.”

 

If she hadn’t cared, she wouldn’t have gotten up five minutes later when her doorbell rang.

If she hadn’t cared, she wouldn’t have been shocked to find Raven slumped against the wall outside her door.

If she hadn’t cared, she would’ve slammed the door in her face and forgotten about her.

 

But she did get up and go to the door, and she did gasp when she saw Raven outside her door – and she did let her in.

Well, it was more like she pulled Raven in. The brunette didn’t move, just sat on the floor, peering up at her with an eerie smile, and Anya quickly realized that, at the very least, she was very drunk.

“Get in before someone sees you,” she muttered, grabbing Raven’s arm and pulling her up and into her apartment. The door slammed behind them, and suddenly Anya realized that she’d pulled Raven into her arms, and that she was holding her up – and that Raven was doing nothing to pull away.

She tried to let go, an apology forming on her lips, but when Raven’s slender arms wrapped around her waist and held her there, the words slipped away from her – all of them. Anya simply forgot how to speak. Raven was limp and swaying, leaning heavily against Anya, and Anya was so sure that if she let go the brunette would fall down again that she wrapped an arm tightly around her waist – just to be sure.

She also couldn’t find anything to say, and so they stood in the alcove for a good five minutes with Raven leaning heavily against Anya and Anya trying to figure out what was going on.

“Do you want to sit down?”

Raven shook her head and held on tighter, but said nothing.

“Are you hurt?”

Raven shook her head again.

“Are you okay?”

Third shake. Anya sighed and shifted a little, and that was when Raven’s legs really did give way under her. Anya almost fell, but caught her, and pulled her up.

“Okay, let’s get you to the couch,” she groaned. “Come on, Raven.”

She half-dragged Raven over to the couch and sat her down, and went over to the kitchen to get some water before coming back.

“Here.”

“I’m not thirsty,” Raven slurred, pushing the glass away. “Not at…all.”

She grinned and gave Anya’s nose a boop, and then leaned back on the couch, giggling a little to herself.

“Are you drunk?”

“Very,” Raven nodded.

“Are you high?”

There was a pause before Raven answered. “Nia wanted to celebrate. I didn’t have a choice,” she mumbled, toying with a strand of hair. “I don’t- not my thing. The things. I don’t do…them.”

Anya had no idea what she was talking about. “Can you say that again?”

“I don’t do the things.”

“What things?”

Raven shrugged. “Things.”

“Drugs, you mean?”

“Yeah, those. Not my thing.”

“But you’re high now?”

“Ye-es, did you not hear me?” Raven pouted. “Don’t be so judgey,” she added, tossing a piece of lint at Anya. “You’re prettier when you’re not frowning.”

Anya ignored what she’d said. “What did you take?”

Raven shrugged and tugged at a strand of hair.

“Raven…”

“When did you stop calling me Reyes?”

Raven was looking directly at her, into her eyes, and Anya was struck by how dark her eyes were – her pupils were so dilated her eyes looked almost black, and the smudged makeup and dark circles under her eyes only emphasized the effect.

Before Anya could think of an answer, Raven shrugged and said: “It’s okay, I don’t want you to call me Reyes, it’s ugly.”

“But you told me to call you Reyes.”

“I did?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Oh.”

“What did you take?”

Another shrug. “I dunno.”

“You don’t know?”

Raven shook her head. “She didn’t tell me. She just said I needed to get fun.”

“Who said?”

“Ontari.”

“Who’s Ontari?”

“Nia’s bitch.”

“Okay, so what did Ontari give you?”

Raven shrugged. “Just some coke, first,” she mumbled. “But that wore off.”

“And then?”

“Shors....shots. So many shots,” Raven said. “And- K, maybe. Or oxy. I think she put K in my drink,” she finally decided. “I feel warm.”

Anya sighed. “Raven, do you feel okay?”

“ ‘M fii-ine-“ came a slurred answer. “Don’t be such a cop all the time.”

“Seriously.”

Raven crossed her arms over her chest and slumped into the corner of the couch. “I didn’t come here to be inter- intra-rogated,” she muttered. She stumbled over the last word, failing to properly say it at all, but Anya figured it out anyway – and frowned.

“What did you come here for, then?”

For the second time that night, Raven looked into Anya’s eyes, and amidst the unfocused haze, Anya saw a hint of clarity – of determination, a hint that she did have some reason for coming, that it hadn’t just been a spontaneous drunken decision.

Raven didn’t say anything when she got up, or when she shuffled over so that she was right beside Anya – no, she only spoke after she’d slid her hand around Anya’s neck and kissed her in a way that left Anya speechless.

“I came here for you.”

The words on their own were powerful, but when Raven offered a shy smile afterwards, Anya felt a little drunk herself – thoughts seemed impossible, let alone words, and so she was glad when Raven started giggling, and then rambling some nonsense.

“I’m warm,” the brunette mumbled, leaning back to lay on the couch, “Sooo warm…”

That was when Anya noticed what Raven was wearing. Or lack thereof – she was wearing a skirt so short it just barely covered anything, and her top was equally as exposing – and tight. Having only ever seen Raven in ripped jeans, oversized hoodies and mechanic’s overalls, Anya was perplexed to see her dressed like so. It didn’t look like Raven – it looked good, but it didn’t look like something she would ever wear.

Also, it was early December. It was almost cold enough to be snowing.

But Raven’s skin didn’t feel cold to the touch, nor was she shivering, or appear in any way cold, despite having walked over from god-knows-where to Anya’s apartment. Or at least that’s what Anya assumed – she saw no car, nor was Raven in any state to drive, and the last bus to her area of town had come hours ago.

“Hey, Anya.”

Hearing her own name surprised Anya as much as it appeared to surprise Raven that she’d said it.

“You said my name.”

Raven nodded slowly, letting her high pony tail fall over her face before throwing it back again. “Mm-hm.”

“How do you know my first name?”

“I’m psychic.”

Anya let out a laugh. “No, you’re not.”

“Yes I am!”

“No, you’re definitely not.”

“But I feel psy- si- you know, that.”

“You should rest,” Anya said then, resting her hand on Raven’s arm. “Really.”

But Raven looked at Anya’s hand on her arm in surprise and, having not heard her, said: “I can’t feel that. Whoa. Shit. This is weird.”

“What?”

Raven ignored her and spent the next five minutes poking her own arm and swearing under her breath about how weird it was, leaving Anya to watch her with equal amounts of concern and amusement.

When fifteen minutes had passed and Raven was still focused on herself, Anya got up to go get a drink. She was only gone half a minute, but she came back to find Raven staring at her with wide eyes, as though she’d never seen her before in her life.

“I thought you left.”

“I did. To get a drink.”

“When?”

“Less than a minute ago.”

Raven licked her lips and nodded. “Okay…don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Don’t leave. I don’t like it when you’re not here.”

Anya sat into the armchair by the TV, and thought Raven would go back to doing whatever she’d been doing before. But no, the brunette threw a pillow at her – or, well, her general direction, missing her by at least five feet – and complained that she was ignoring her.

“Well what do you want me to do?”

“Come here and do me hard and rough.”

By this point, Raven’s speech was more or less slurred and mashed together, and so she didn’t sound very sexy – if anything, she just sounded adorable.

Anya had never thought she could find Raven cute, and yet there she was, with Raven laying on her couch with her feet up in the air, grinning at her wildly, and all she could think was that she was cute. Not annoying, not infuriating, just cute, and funny.

_Maybe I’m dreaming,_ she thought, _because this is crazy. All of – this -._

“Anyaa-“

“What?”

“Are you mad?”

“Mad?”

“Mhmm.”

“Why would I be mad?”

Raven looked genuinely concerned, almost like she was about to burst into tears, and Anya found herself at a loss for words or any courses of action. She was terrible with her own emotions, let alone anyone else’s – they just really weren’t her thing.

“I called you a bitch,” Raven muttered, picking at a pillow she’d grabbed off the floor. “And selfish. You’re not.”

Anya just gaped at Raven, not sure whether she believed what she was hearing.

“And I stole your hoodie,” Raven added quietly. “I’m sorry.”

She looked like she was on the brink of tears. She was no longer laying down, she was sitting up, curled up into a tight ball, almost trembling visibly; but it wasn’t until she sniffled quietly that Anya was roused from her daze and moved over to sit beside her. She didn’t touch Raven, or try to really comfort her – she didn’t really know how, and didn’t even know how Raven would react if she tried.

“You stole my hoodie?”

“It was cold,” Raven mumbled, leaning against Anya’s shoulder. “So cold.”

Anya had no idea when this had happened – she hadn’t even noticed she’d lost a hoodie.

“It’s…it’s okay,” she finally said, her voice quiet and careful. “It’s…fine. Forgotten.”

A sigh from beside her drew her attention, and she glanced at Raven to find that she’d fallen asleep.

She tried to put her down gently, but instead made Raven fall into her lap. Thankfully, the brunette was so knocked out that she didn’t wake, and for a brief moment, Anya sat there, unsure of what to do.

What she finally did do was lift Raven off of her and lay her on her side onto the couch.

She even went to the effort of putting a pillow under her head and a blanket over her to make sure she didn’t get cold.

She went to sleep knowing Raven would be gone by the time she woke up.

She wasn’t wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> raven is a dumb baby and i love her ok
> 
> also, kudos and comments would be very much appreciated


	4. who could it be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is slowly growing into my fave fic after tmt
> 
> there's so much to work with I LOVE IT
> 
> and i'm such a sucker for slowburn angst i'm sorry but also i'm not

It was five in the morning on a Tuesday, and Anya was up, at work, and looking at a dead body.

The icy wind pushed through her coat and made her shiver, and she turned away. She’d seen enough.

“Take her away,” she sighed. “I’ve seen enough.”

When she’d gotten the call at only a little past four about an unidentified female body on the riverbank, she had almost told someone else to go. But then she’d been told that the Jane Doe had brown hair and an Azgeda tattoo, and she’d more or less jumped out of bed. She was dressed and out of her door in record time, and all through the drive to the crime scene she didn’t think a single thing other than that it couldn’t be her.

_It couldn’t be her._

It turned out that it wasn’t, but for that brief half an hour of panic had given Anya a reality check. It could have been Raven. She _was_ part of the gang, she _was_ reckless, she _was_ involved in god-knows-what and she _was_ snitching on them – if she was ever found out, getting murdered wasn’t just a possibility, but an inevitable fact.

She hadn’t seen Raven for a few weeks. It wasn’t unusual, not by any measure, but she was starting to wonder about her again.

She’d seen her just briefly, two days after she’d shown up at her door drunk and high out of her mind. Raven hadn’t apologized, but she had told Anya to never mention the night, and to not take anything she’d said seriously.

She’d made a mistake, that was what she’d said, and Anya had been happy to accept that explanation, even though it felt more like an excuse than anything.

But there were some things that Raven had said that haunted Anya, and came back periodically to taunt her.

_You’re prettier when you’re not frowning._

_I came here for you._

_I don’t like it when you’re not here._

A sigh and a brief shake of head was enough for Anya to clear her mind, and she focused back on the task at hand – identifying the murder victim. She wasn’t on any database, there was no i.d. on her, nothing to even hint at her identity – she didn’t even have clothes. The only hint was the tattoo on her shoulder, the same one that Raven had. The same one everyone in Azgeda had.

“Lex,” Anya said, peeking at her partner from across the table. “I need to go question some gang members. Ask around. You in?”

Lexa frowned. “Why?”

“Murder vic. No i.d. , just a very familiar tattoo.”

“Ah.”

“I’ll go request some backup. You never know, nowadays.”

Half an hour later they were headed down to the building at the outskirts of town where they knew the gang kept it’s headquarters. They were yet to get proper proof for it, but they weren’t wrong, and bringing a couple extra guys along was never a bad idea.

The gang was tight, and did not like visitors. Especially not cops.

There was a group of people loitering around the entrance, and, as they began approaching, it became clear that they weren’t going to let them in.

“Get out,” some of them yelled. “This is private property!”

“You need a warrant!”

Anya sighed. “We’re not trying to get in. We’re just here to ask some questions.”

The group erupted into laughter, and the man closest to her spat at her feet. “We don’t talk to cops.”

“And I don’t talk to scum like you,” Anya replied coolly. “And yet, here I am. It’s just one question.”

She handed him the picture of Jane Doe. “Who’s this?”

The man snorted and handed the picture to his friend. “I don’t know.

“You didn’t even look.”

“That’s right. ‘Cause I don’t talk to cops.”

“She’s _dead._ ”

For a brief moment, Anya caught the surprise in the man’s eye. But then he turned around and disappeared inside the building, muttering curses, leaving the rest of the group to glance at the picture and glare at the four officers.

It wasn’t until then that Anya noticed Raven standing near the edge of the group. She had her arms crossed, and was snickering, murmuring something to the woman next to her. The fact that Anya felt an overwhelming desire to look at her only made her frown more and focus even more on the task at hand.

“Get lost, pigs,” someone yelled. “We don’t want you here!”

Anya stood her ground. “Just answer my question, and we’ll go.”

“You can’t boss us around!”

“Yeah!”

 _Idiots, all of them,_ Anya thought to herself. But she simply waited, and said nothing to the group of five or so people who were hurling insults at her and her partners.

The picture had been passed around when suddenly there was a cry. A young man, looking to be about twenty, saw the picture and immediately let out a wail, making it more than clear that he recognized the woman.

“Who’s he,” Anya murmured to Lexa. “He knew her.”

“Jasper Jordan,” Lexa murmured back. “A drug dealer. We know where he lives, we can pick him up later.”

“What did they do,” Jasper yelled, “What did they do to my Maia? Look- she’s- she’s-“

“Dead,” Raven finished for him, placing a hand on his arm and pushing him back. “She’s dead, now shut up, or Nia will have your head-”

She smacked him and shoved him away, turning to face Anya with annoyance and anger in her eyes.

“And you,” she growled, stepping forward in a threatening manner, “You can fuck right off. You’re not getting anything off of us - any of us.”

Anya didn’t want to be pushed down by Raven. She knew Raven was just acting, and very well at that – but she was annoyed again, and wouldn’t go down that easy.

“You don’t scare me.”

“Just fuck off, dyke!”

It wasn’t Raven who yelled that. If anything, Raven looked even more surprised to hear it than Anya was.

“Yeah, fuck off, and take your bodyguards with you – fucking coward!”

That was another voice, still not Raven – Raven was looking at Anya, still glaring, but Anya could tell that she was surprised, if not even annoyed.

When the rest of the group started hauling insults again, Raven realized she had to partake or risk being singled out. She stepped forward again, gave Anya a hard shove, and glared at her with such fiery eyes that even Anya was surprised.

“You heard them,” she growled, leaning in as close to Anya’s face as she dared. “Get the fuck out of here, dyke, and take your girlfriend and boytoys with you.”

“I could arrest you for assaulting an officer, you know,” Anya snapped back. “But fine. We got what we wanted.”

She turned on her heel and stormed off, not bothering to look back. She didn’t need the picture back, either. Not that there was any chance she could even get it back while keeping her dignity. Behind them, the group snickered and laughed, and Anya was almost sure she heard Raven laugh, too – though she’d never head her laugh before, she was almost certain she recognized it amidst the voices.

Back in the car, she sat down and just breathed for a good while – long enough for Lexa to get worried.

“You okay? They said some pretty nasty stuff-“

“Yeah,” Anya shrugged. “I’m over it.”

“But not quite…?”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. They’re all morons.”

“Yeah. That Reyes is such a bitch, though,” Lexa chuckled. “I almost decked her when she shoved you.”

“You should’ve.”

“And when she called you…you know.”

“It’s fine.”

“But I should’ve decked her anyway. For your and my sake.”

“Okay, yeah, you should’ve.”

“I honestly would’ve, but it’s against protocol, so...”

Anya laughed. “And you, of course, follow the rules.”

“Only when I’m on duty…” Lexa reminded her. “But now we have a name for our vic – or a first name, and at least one person we can be sure knew her. That’s good, right?”

“Yeah, that’s one problem ticked off my list,” Anya sighed. “But it’s good. Sorry. Been having a hectic week.”

“I can see that,” Lexa sighed. “You know you can talk to me, right?”

“I do. I just don’t have anything like that, anything I’d need to talk about,” Anya told her. “And besides, I’m basically fine. Just really tired.”

 

* * *

 

Anya knew Raven would call that night, and so, just after she’d had her second cup of coffee that night, she picked up the phone the moment it rang.

“The abandoned waterpark, in an hour?”

Anya nodded. “Right. Now you want me to break into someone’s private property?”

“It’s not like anyone cares, nobody’s been there since the 90s. Not even horny teenagers, they’re too scared of the supposed ghosts.”

There was a slight pause, and for a moment, Anya just stood there, waiting for Raven to hang up. But she didn’t.

“Listen,” Raven sighed, “I’m sorry about what I said, today.”

Anya was genuinely surprised to hear an apology. “I- yeah. It’s fine.”

“I had to.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“I know.”

Another slight pause, and then, after a few long seconds of silence, the line went dead.

Anya just sighed and let her phone drop to the bed as she got up to get dressed. It wasn’t like she ever really thought much about going – when Raven called, she answered, and then went wherever she was due to meet her. She rarely said no, and when she did, it was because she was genuinely busy, or dead tired.

And so she got in her car at just a little past eleven and drove to the outskirts of town, to the abandoned waterpark that everyone knew but nobody ever dared visit. It had been abandoned in the late 80s, and had been a popular hang-out spot until the turn of the century, when a few kids had fallen to their deaths and the city council had closed it off for good. Every few years or so, some inspired politician suggested plans for rebuilding the site into something new, but thus far, none of those plans had panned out.

The rusty billboard by the entrance was overrun by graffiti, and what was left of the original name read “SH LAND”

Some genius had added an ‘IT’ after the SH. Anya just shook her head as she parked her car behind a dumpster, realizing quickly that Raven was nowhere to be seen.

She got out of her car and looked around, wary as one could be in an abandoned and allegedly haunted water park – but soon enough, Anya saw a figure climb down from a water slide, and was soon greeted by the sight of Raven, gesturing for her to follow.

“Grab your bag,” she yelled. “I’ve got a place.”

Anya wasn’t so sure how Raven knew she’d brought toys in her bag. In truth, she never really knew how Raven knew half of the things she did.

“You do know that this is exactly where a serial killer would bring it’s victim, right?” Anya asked as she came to stand in front of the building atop which Raven stood. “I have half the mind to bring my gun.”

“I won’t kill you,” Raven smirked, crouching a little to offer Anya her hand. “Climb on top of that box and I’ll pull you up.”

“You want me to come up?”

“Why not?”

“My car would be warmer.”

“We’re going to be inside, trust me.”

Anya took Raven’s hand and was pulled up with surprising strength. When the brunette started heading towards a slide, Anya simply followed, choosing not to ask any questions – she was curious, despite the creepy and ominous look of the park, and wanted to know why Raven had called her there. Every place they’d been before had been easy access – empty lots and parks and riverbanks, places where Anya could park and be fucking Raven within the span of five minutes. None of them had been like this.

“Watch your step,” Raven muttered when they climbed onto the edge of a slide and began heading up a slope. “It gets slippery, now that there’s ice.”

The fact that they were thirty feet off the ground didn’t make Anya’s stomach churn any less as she gripped a railing and balanced her way up the steeper slope to a landing of sorts.

The park was full of empty slides and pools that had once been painted bright colors, but which were now pale and broken in most places. There were boxes and trash all over the ground, and even in the slides as well – graffiti colored the otherwise gray landscape, though the neon words were nowhere near poetry; the most common word Anya saw was ‘fuck’. It was eerie, the silence, the sounds of the wind howling in the hills and the creak of the metallic legs holding up the slide as they clambered upwards - it wasn't too much of a stretch to imagine ghosts inhabiting the place. Though it most certainly looked dead, it felt alive, in a 'quiet whispers and cold hands touching your neck' kind of way.

Anya didn't like it. At all. She wasn't the type for scary movies, or daring adventures - certainly nothing like this.

“Here,” Raven said, turning around after hoisting herself up to another slide that crossed over the one they’d been climbing, “Grab my hand. It’s a bit of a stretch.”

Anya frowned. “What makes you think I can’t do a pull-up?”

Raven just shrugged and watched as Anya reached and pulled herself up with only a little bit of a struggle.

“Well, would you look at that,” she smirked when she saw Anya rubbing her slightly scraped hands, “They do train you cops after all.”

Anya just huffed and told her to keep moving.

They did finally get inside to somewhere warmer. It was a lifeguard’s hut of sorts, like a guard station standing over the now empty park, set on the hillside – from the hut, Anya could basically see the whole park, and the lights of the city that lay beyond the hills. She also understood why Raven had dragged her up the slides – the stairs up to the hut were broken half-way, and there was no other way up other than the slide.

It wasn’t exactly the safest of places. In fact, the whole hut looked as though it would fall over any second weight was distributed wrongly – the metal legs that kept it on the hillside were rusty, and bent in places, but Raven hopped over to door so easily and without fear that Anya was willing to trust her instead of her instincts.

“It won’t break down,” Raven quipped, not even looking at Anya as she opened the door and stepped in. “I’ve tried to make it fall down, it won’t.”

When Anya stepped in, she paused in the doorway from sheer surprise. The hut looked homey, unlike anything she’d expected – there was an armchair in a corner, a pile of mattresses in the other, and a table with a tablecloth, atop which Anya saw boxes full of more nuts and bolts and screws and metal pieces than she could count. The lamp overhead worked just fine, which was surprising enough, but to add to that, there were all sorts of little things; blankets, pillows, piles of books here and there, strewn across the small space in a manner that was simultaneously haphazard and organized.

“Do you live here?”

Raven shrugged and took a sip from a bottle of water that she’d just pulled out of nowhere – or so Anya figured, at least, it could’ve also been vodka, or any other clear liquor. It wouldn’t have been the first time Raven’s mouth would’ve left the taste of alcohol on her tongue.

“It’s water,” Raven told her, rolling her eyes. “And yes, kinda.”

“In an abandoned water park?”

“Yes,” Raven shrugged. “Well…I have a real place, elsewhere, with other people. But this is just my place. Nobody comes here.”

That was the extent of the talking they did that night. Before Anya could even consider asking another question, Raven’s mouth was on hers, and all else was forgotten – after all, she hadn’t come there to talk.

She wasn’t gentle with Raven. She never was, it wasn’t what either of them had agreed on – Raven wanted Anya to pin her hands down and to fuck her bent over the table so roughly the legs creaked; Raven _wanted_ Anya to slam her into walls and to grab her jaw and neck and to leave bite marks and scratches and bruises – Raven wanted all of this, and so did Anya, and, in the end, they were always left in a state of pure exhaustion. In that state, there was no talking, there were no questions asked and no answers given, there were only heavy breaths and racing pulses and mouths still seeking kisses tipped in the purest form of lust.

This time, however, Anya went a little too far. Or so she thought, at the very least.

She’d fucked Raven against the table, and against the wall, and on the couch – and then, by round four on the bed, Raven was hazy-eyed and incapable of words, just putty in Anya’s arms.

Anya grinded the strapon into her, pushed as deep as it went, and felt a wave of pleasure from hearing the whimpers of the brunette beneath her coupled with the stinging pain of the scratches she left on her back – she leaned down, captured Raven’s lips with her own, and focused on nothing else other than the taste of sex and need in Raven’s mouth and the feel of her writhing beneath her as she kept fucking.

She could tell when Raven was getting close – her nails dug into her shoulder, and when she came, she pulled away to let out a string of curses; her hips met Anya’s, her legs wrapped around her waist pulled her even closer, inviting her even deeper as she arched her back and allowed that final exhaustive wave of pleasure run over her.

In the moment right after, where Anya was still over Raven, her toy still inside her, Anya saw Raven’s eyes go hazy.

They’d been hazy before, but now they lost all focus, and, after mumbling something that could have been words, Raven turned her head on the pillow and fell asleep.

Anya didn’t realize what was happening before Raven was fully knocked out, limp, and laying beneath her – and when she did realize, she pulled herself away, pulled the toy out and got rid of it altogether, staring at the brunette in concern.

She tried to shake Raven awake, but the brunette smacked her hand away and mumbled some more in her sleep.

“Fucking shit,” Anya sighed, resting her hand on Raven’s shoulder, contemplating shaking her again. “Why do you have to be such a piece of work?”

She tried Raven’s pulse, and after finding it perfectly fine, came to the conclusion that the brunette had to be just fine. She was just sound asleep.

After a while of sitting there and frowning at Raven, Anya got up to find her clothes. They were here and there, left where Raven had torn them off, but one sock was mysteriously gone. Anya searched, looked over the piles of clothes, but instead of her sock she found a hoodie that she immediately recognized.

She hadn’t realized a hoodie had been missing until Raven had apologized for stealing one, and it had taken her a while to figure out which one. But now she was looking at her hoodie, a gray one with a UCSF logo on the back, tossed on the arm of a chair as though it belonged there. When she picked it up, she saw a small coffee stain on the sleeve, and sighed.

“Of course,” Anya said quietly, dropping the hoodie and finally seeing her sock, hidden behind a box of empty bottles.

She felt a slight cool draft on the floor, and glanced at Raven, realizing she would be cold soon if she didn't do something. And so she grabbed a blanket or two and tossed them over Raven, not thinking much of it. It was just common courtesy.

Anya considered leaving. She really did.

But she wasn’t sure if Raven was okay, she wasn’t sure if she was just sleeping or hurt, or sick – and so she grabbed the nearest and least-boring looking book and curled up in the armchair, figuring she’d wait until Raven woke up.

And then she’d leave.

Minutes passed over into hours with little to no change. The wind picked up outside, and then, slowly, the rain began falling. The storm had been gathering all day, the dark clouds overhead had been more than clear in their intent - Anya didn't care. She enjoyed the humming sound of the rain, the quiet rushes of wind, and the knowledge that she was inside and warm, not outside. The quiet pitter-patter of the icy raindrops on the metal roof of the hut calmed everything down, ran over any other noises, and Anya found herself dozing off in the serene calmness of the hut. Outside, it was cold, it was raining, it was dark and gray and depressing – but inside, under the light of a single flickering lightbulb, it was warm.

It was comfortable.

Anya didn’t know she’d fallen asleep, not until she was woken suddenly to a startled gasp from the bed. The chair faced away from the bed, and so Anya didn’t know whether Raven had really woken until she heard the floorboards creak and pacing footsteps – she heard Raven’s breaths, irregular and quick, and then, a whimper – and a sob.

Raven didn’t seem to notice Anya when she walked over to the wall and leaned heavily against it, her shoulders heaving under the effort of pushing her sobs back down. Anya stayed there, in the chair, silently, unsure of what to do. She watched Raven’s nails dig into the skin of her arm, so deep there was sure to be blood; she saw Raven’s legs shake, her whole body did, but barely a sound came out of her as she stood there, crying.

This was now the second time Anya had seen Raven crying, and she was even more perplexed than the first time.

It wasn’t until Raven sniffled and turned around that she saw Anya – and cried out, stumbling backwards and losing her balance. She fell over a box, and laid on the floor, amidst shattered glass and pieces of debris, for a long while.

When she moved, she hissed, and let out a whole load of curses in Spanish, of which Anya barely caught any – but she knew the basics, and figured she'd let out just about every swearword she knew.

She also saw a bloody cut on the back of Raven’s arm, and sighed. “Don’t you go blaming that on me,” she muttered, sitting up in the chair.

“Why are you here?” Raven retorted. “Fuckin’…Jesus Christ…” She stood up, tried to look at her arm, but couldn’t see properly. Not that she seemed to care; she went over to a cupboard, pulled out a pack of bandages, and began to bandage herself up, still swearing under her breath.

“You invited me here,” Anya said. “Remember?”

Raven glanced at her, frowning. “Well I must have, you wouldn’t have found this place otherwise. But why are you still here? What happened?”

Anya let out a laugh, not believing that Raven could’ve forgotten. “What happened is that we fucked, and you passed the fuck out.”

“Oh.”

“And I didn’t know if you were hurt or just sleeping,” Anya continued, standing up and starting to gather her things, “So I stayed, in case you started dying, or something-”

“And now I have a cut on my arm,” Raven muttered. “Thanks.”

“Your own fault.”

“I’m good now,” came Raven’s answer. “You can go.”

Anya sighed and opened the door. “I wasn’t waiting for your permission.”

When she left, she didn’t look back.

Because she didn’t look back, she didn’t know that Raven stood in the doorway until she made it to her car. She didn’t know that Raven’s eyes were fixed on her disappearing form, she didn’t know how Raven’s fingers dug into her arms, when she saw Anya slip and almost fall – she didn’t know that Raven didn’t go back inside until she’d driven safely away.

If she had known, perhaps she would’ve turned back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> raven is a grumpy piece of work but also i love her more than the stars in the sky
> 
> and poor anya, being kept in the dark about everything but trust me raven has good reasons to not trust anybody 
> 
> but they are getting closer i mean raven showed anya 'her place' where nobody comes but she let anya in and ahh i love these dumb babies


	5. it's hard to say it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't stop writing this fic even though i've got twelve others that i should update
> 
> but i love my dumb stubborn angsty babies too much

The fact that Raven was wrapped in mystery was the worst of all. If she’d been uninteresting, lacking any secrets or unspoken truths, Anya would’ve passed her by without even looking.

Or so she told herself, anyway.

But Raven wasn’t lacking in things to make her interesting. Anya barely knew a thing about her, and every little thing that she learned came with a dozen new questions lacking answers; whatever she knew, it was never enough.

She didn’t know where Raven spent her days, she didn't know where she worked, or what she did - she had hints, smears of motor oil and the occasional wrench that she carried in her pockets, and the mechanic's overalls, but she didn't know anything for sure. She didn’t know what she did when she wasn’t in jail, she didn’t know what half of the tattoos on her body meant, and the other half were more than obvious – prison tattoos, gang tattoos, ones which Anya had grown accustomed to seeing on people she deemed bad.

But Raven had those same tattoos, and Anya hadn’t quite pegged her as a bad person. She couldn’t be, not when there were lingering looks and occasional accidents where she kissed her softer than intended; a person who was bad wouldn’t have been like Raven was, Anya was sure of it. Anya was sure that she would never trust a criminal, and, as she had slowly grown to realize, she trusted Raven.

Not much, but more than she did most people. She trusted that Raven would be back.

Her trust was tried more often than necessary on a regular basis. Sometimes Raven would disappear for weeks without a word or explanation, but she would always be back, and Anya usually saw her at the police station or around town – but when a month had passed without Anya even seeing her anywhere at all, her patience was growing thinner by the day. And perhaps, just maybe, she was also getting a little worried. 

To distract herself from the nagging feeling in her gut, Anya threw herself into her work. She was determined to excel, and wanted nothing more than to be the one to finally figure out a solid plan to uproot Azgeda from Polis once and for all – but that task was easier said than done. They were everywhere, and half of the leading names in the gang were so successfully underground that the police department had no clue of their whereabouts, or even their real names or faces.

There’d been some developments that had led to the expansion of the ‘Azgeda team’, meaning Anya got to work with Lexa again – which was a pleasant change of pace to the snobby older detectives Anya had been forced to work with for a while.

“It’s impossible,” Lexa groaned, leaning her head in her hands. “This- if we arrest someone now, another one just pops right up-“

“It’s like that scene in Hercules,” Monroe chimed in, “With the hydra, where it just grows two new heads in the place of that one he-“

“Yeah, alright, we get it,” Anya sighed. “Impossible quest. But this is our job.”

“Then how do you suggest we move along? We can’t march up to them and just arrest them all, we’ll miss some, and besides, the charges won’t stick – I mean, we _know_ that Nia has committed murders, but where are the bodies? Nowhere. So far as the world’s concerned, her victims have ceased to exist. She’s the mastermind behind all of this and yet, we have no proof of anything – and if we arrest her on something minor, she’ll get out eventually, and she’ll be our problem, once again.”

“We follow the plan,” Anya told Lexa. “We gather evidence, build a case, keep our eyes open – she’ll slip up. Just wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“An actual body,” Anya shrugged. “Or a good piece of information. We keep doing our thing, keep records, and eventually…we’ll get them.”

Maybe she relied too much on the faith that Raven would provide them something good.

Maybe.

And maybe she did have to push a pen into her thigh under the table to make herself stop thinking about Raven.

Maybe.

Time felt as though it had frozen. Anya read through file after file, report after report, but found nothing of value – she read them over again, thought it over, stood up at least three times to look at the map, but still, only ten minutes had passed when she looked at her watch again.

“God, can’t it move any faster,” she muttered, reaching for her cup of coffee.

“I know. It’s like time doesn’t exist anymore,” Lexa muttered, “Just piles and piles of papers and maps and pictures, nothing of use…”

“Okay,” Anya suddenly said, drawing the attentions of everyone around the table. “So we more or less know she’s committed murders, right?”

“Right…but there’s no bodies.”

“Right, but, there must be crime scenes somewhere, right?”

“We’ll never get a warrant unless there’s a body – no body, no murder, remember?”

Anya sighed. “I know, but hear me out – where can you make a body disappear?”

“The sea?”

“The sea’s three hundred miles away, but good try anyway,” Anya said.

“Abandoned lots?”

“Possible, but we’ve kept an eye on most of them.”

“A crematorium,” someone suggested.

“Yes, exactly,” Anya agreed, almost letting a smile slip. "A crematorium would be perfect."

“But there’ll be ashes,” someone else reminded them.

“Mixed with other peoples’ ashes,” argued the first speaker – detective Collins, another newbie on the team. “And it could be that nobody even noticed, they could be everywhere…somebody might’ve scattered them alongside their dead grandma, or something.”

“No, this is good - we’re getting somewhere,” Anya said. “Crematoriums. There’s sixteen crematoriums in Polis, counting industrial ones, I just checked. We add surveillance around them, we might get something.”

“Sounds good.”

Anya whirled around to find her boss standing behind her. “Excellent work, Faye,” he continued. “Crematoriums sounds like a plan. Everyone agree?”

There were nods and mumbled words of agreement, and after a while, the chief went his way, leaving behind a very flustered Anya.

“Great job, Anya,” Lexa laughed, giving her a little shove. “You got yourself a compliment. You don’t see that everyday, not with chief Pensive over there-“

“Oh shut up,” Anya muttered. “It was nothing.”

“No, that was really a good idea. It might actually even work.”

“Maybe.”

 

* * *

 

Anya was on her way back home, waiting in her car at a red light on a virtually empty street. There was someone screaming on the radio, and so with a sigh she turned it off – it was better listening to silence than to terrible music.

It was dark out, and so she didn’t notice Raven running to her car until suddenly she’d torn the door open and barrelled in.

“Move!”

Anya whirled around to stare at Raven in shock.

“What!?”

“Drive!”

“I can’t, it’s a red light-“

Luckily for Anya, the light turned green just then, and she drove off, extremely confused as to why Raven had hijacked her car.

“What the fuck are you doing, Reyes?” she demanded, glancing at the figure laying low in her back seat whenever she dared. “Why the hell are you in my car?”

It took a while for Anya to realize that Raven was laughing. She was doubled over, laughing her heart out, ignoring Anya’s questions and obvious concern – she didn’t care, she didn’t seem to fully even realize where she was, not until she finally let out a long breath and said:

“Okay, I’m good, sorry.”

She giggled a little before continuing. “I just kicked this one guy’s ass, and he started chasing me-“

“What?”

“Hey, ok, I had a very good reason to kick his ass.”

“Kick who’s ass?”

“That guy, standing in the middle of the street with a baseball bat, next to that other dude,” Raven said, turning around quickly to glance at him. Anya could barely make out a figure in the darkness, but did see a burly middle-aged man with a baseball bat, standing next to another man, and sighed.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Raven argued. “He’s a cab driver, and he was driving my friend home and tried to harass her, but she got out, so I went down to teach him a proper lesson – I managed to give him a good beating with my bat but then his friend showed up and took my baseball bat, so I just ran the fuck outta there-“

“Raven!”

“What?”

“That’s idiotic!” Anya snapped. “You- you do realize I’m a cop, right?”

“Yeah, but you’re not going to arrest me,” Raven smirked. “I know you won’t.”

“And why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you’re not a jackass.”

Anya sighed and turned round the corner towards her house. Raven stayed quiet until the moment the car stopped, which was when she looked at Anya for a while before speaking.

“Can I come in?”

Anya frowned. “You disappear for a month and all you’re thinking about is sex?”

“It hasn’t been a month,” Raven argued. “...has it?”

“It has.”

“Have you been keeping track?”

The tone of Raven’s voice was teasing, and Anya was having none of it – and so she got out of the car and headed up the stairs to the door of her apartment, not even caring whether Raven was following her or not.

When she turned around to see if she’d left her car, she almost rammed into Raven, who stood directly behind her – and almost pushed Raven down the stairs, but the brunette caught hold of the railing, shooting Anya an annoyed look before steadying herself.

“No need to go all Scar on me, dude,” she muttered.

Anya just sighed, locked her car, and walked into her apartment. She was annoyed that Raven had thought she could just disappear for a month and come back like nothing had happened. She was annoyed that Raven didn’t even seem to acknowledge time had passed, but most of all, she was annoyed with herself for being glad to see her.

“So, are we doing this, or nah?”

Anya turned around and looked at Raven for a good while before shrugging. “Whatever.”

Whatever Raven was wearing was irrelevant, but in that instant, Anya did notice it. That was chiefly due to the fact that it was a tight pink dress, so unlike Raven, and so much like something Barbie would wear – it was hideous, though it looked great on her, but it also looked so wrong that Anya was glad to get Raven out of it.

Which she did very quickly. Raven didn’t mind being naked, and Anya didn’t mind it either – she enjoyed the feel of her naked skin under her hands, the feel of Raven’s bare body against her own clothed body; she liked that she could just turn Raven around and bend her over and have her at her mercy, and she enjoyed the ease with which Raven submitted to being handled like so.

She liked the fact that she could pick Raven up and pin her against the wall. She liked physically having her in her arms, feeling her quiver as she fucked her to the brink of exhausting pleasure – she thoroughly enjoyed it all, the moans and the whimpers and the wetness and the sweaty aftermath the both of them always somehow ended up in.

This time, they ended up naked, laying in Anya’s bed, gasping for air, trying to recollect themselves after exhausting all their lust and anger and annoyance into one another. Anya felt dizzy but in the best of ways, and knew that Raven had to feel the same way as well, if not even more so – she looked like she was barely awake, her dark eyes peering from underneath heavy eyelids, her arm resting limply atop her rising breast.

“That…” she mumbled, raising a hand to point loosely at Anya, “That was good.”

She let her hand fall to the bed and sighed. “I can’t move.”

Anya couldn’t even muster the energy to laugh. “No rush,” she said, rolling out of bed herself, feeling every bit as relaxed as she would’ve after a full-body massage. “I’m not kicking you to the curb.”

Raven just hummed and turned over to lay on her stomach, the dip of her back and the curve of her ass drawing Anya’s eyes without her even realizing.

“That guy won’t report me, will he?” Raven asked. “I mean, he’s the one who tried to harass my friend-“

“He probably won’t,” Anya sighed. “But I don’t know.”

Raven just shrugged. “Got what he deserved.”

Anya chose not to comment.

At least Raven had had the common sense to bring a baseball bat.

Anya was fully dressed when she realized Raven was still laying in her bed, eyeing her with a curious and carefully look.

“What?”

Raven just shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Do you have something to say?”

Raven shook her head. “No, not really.”

“Not really?”

Anya saw the brunette take a breath before letting out a deep sigh. “Would you mind if I crashed on your couch again?”

“Sure,” Anya said, “But only if you tell me why.”

“The guy I beat up may or may not live in my building,” Raven muttered. “I’d rather stay away till he’s cooled down. And the roof at the lifeguard’s station started leaking last week.”

Anya nodded. “Okay.”

It was surprisingly strange, having Raven in her apartment. They had nothing to talk about, and Raven had suddenly become respectful – there were no teasing taunts, no snarky comments, nothing at all. When Anya decided to watch the eight o’clock news, Raven sat on the other end of the couch, watching quietly. Though Anya did know that Raven’s eyes weren’t always fixed on the TV, she dared not turn her head and look; it felt as though there was an unspoken rule there, something fragile standing in between them and casual conversation, something that could be broken and that should never be shattered.

Anya watched Raven tug the hem of her dress down for a good half an hour before abruptly getting up and disappearing into her bedroom, only to reappear with a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie.

“Here,” she said, tossing them at Raven. “You can borrow those.”

“I don’t need clothes, I'm wearing clothes.”

“You don’t look comfortable in them,” Anya quipped, turning on her heel to go to the kitchen. “Hungry?”

“Why should you care?”

“You’re technically my guest,” Anya replied, reaching for a mug to make her tea in. “And my mother taught me that guests should always be fed.”

Raven just looked at Anya from the couch. “You don’t need to coddle me.”

“No, but you do need to eat.”

“I don’t need to eat.”

Anya just raised an eyebrow and tossed a banana at Raven. “Do with it what you will.”

She hadn’t even asked if Raven wanted tea. She’d figured that Raven would’ve said no, but had made her a cup anyway, and so the brunette was forced to take it.

She did mumble a thanks, though it was so quiet and inaudible that Anya only just caught it.

And she did, after some time, change into the sweatpants and hoodie that Anya had brought her. Though she said nothing about it, Anya saw that her body language relaxed significantly the instant she was in sweatpants – she no longer looked tense and uncomfortable, nor did she shift in her seat as often as she had when wearing the dress; though she didn’t quite look fully comfortable, she looked more than fine.

When Anya went to bed, she brought out a blanket for Raven.

For a brief second, she wondered if she could drag Raven to her own bed, fuck her again, and make her fall asleep there – but it was just speculation, just a whim, she knew it wasn’t something she could actually make happen. And so she just shoved the blanket into Raven’s hands, told her to turn off the lights when she went to sleep, and walked off towards her room.

She’d reached the doorway when she heard Raven speak.

“Good night, Anya.”

Anya threw a glance over her shoulder and smiled, just a little. “Good night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anya cares and raven cares but they're too stubborn to say anything and i love them
> 
> also raven in anya's sweatpants????? iconic, just think about that smol thing wearing the tol anya's pants, she'll look tiny


	6. the hunger's so real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was gonna wait more but i'm a weakling and a sucker for sharing this story because it's so good and so precious and also i'm warning you, your heart is going to do a lot of clenchy things during this chapter but it's gonna be all good i promise 
> 
> NOBODY DIES OK

Anya awoke in the morning feeling amazing. It was her day off, she was relaxed, she had nowhere to be – her only task for the day was to wash her hair, and even that wouldn’t take that long, so really, she was free.

She enjoyed not having to get right out of bed and spent a good while just laying there, tangled in sheets, neither awake nor asleep. She was just warm and comfortable, with nowhere to be, no stress, just a whole day all to herself to do whatever she pleased.

When a good hour later she finally got up, she made herself a cup of coffee and had a banana for breakfast. She wasn’t going anywhere that day, and wasn’t feeling particularly inspired to cook anything. The effort it would’ve taken to fry a few eggs was too much for her lazy day.

But in the end, she didn’t get to have her lazy day when halfway through her cup of coffee her phone rang.

Anya thought it would be Raven.

“What now?”

“Good morning, detective Faye.”

Anya almost dropped her mug when she heard her boss’s voice instead of Raven’s. “Chief? Why-“

“I’m sorry to tell you that we need you here, down at the station.”

“But it’s my day off.”

“You’ll get two days off, we just need you – there’s no one else available who’s involved with the Azgeda case except you, and there’s some reports that have to be finished today. I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.”

Anya sighed. “I understand. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

Her relaxed and calm mood had gone to sour and grumpy in the span of barely a minute, and she was definitely not happy. She didn’t even bother putting on a more neutral face when she walked into the station, her stormy expression causing some of the younger officers to jump and pale on sight. Anya just shrugged it off and got to her desk, slamming her bag down loudly enough to cause Lexa to raise her eyebrows.

“Pissed?”

“Very,” Anya grumbled, slumping into her chair and turning on the computer. “Today was supposed to be my day off.”

“I know. Shitty.”

“I just want to get this over with and get back home.”

“Maybe try to look less prepared for murder,” Lexa chuckled. “You’re going to make the youngest cops here piss their pants.”

“That’s their problem, not mine,” Anya sighed, eyeing the four reports that had popped up on her desktop. “Great. These will take forever.”

 

* * *

 

Later that afternoon, Anya at least got to go outside. A known Azgeda supplier that had been underground for months was sighted on the outskirts of town, and Anya ended up in a car with a bunch of officers she barely knew to go see what it was about.

They found the place after some searching, an abandoned warehouse in a small neighbourhood, but after a quick round of door-to-door they came to the conclusion that nobody had seen the man, or that if they had, they weren’t going to tell them.

“We should just get back,” Anya sighed.

“Maybe we should look in there, though,” someone argued. He was a detective, his name was something along the lines of bellboy, Anya was sure of it – but she hadn’t been listening when he’d introduced himself, and now it was too late to ask. Not that she really cared. On any other day, she might have, but on that particular day, Anya was not interested in anything of the like.

“We had instructions, and there’s protocol,” Anya interjected. “So no, we aren’t going to go in.”

“You want us to get a warrant and _wait_?”

“Yes.”

“He’ll be gone by then.”

“There’s no apparent danger to anyone in there, is there? No. So we wait for a warrant. And besides, the lead was probably a dud.”

Anya saw the younger detective getting annoyed, but couldn’t have cared less. All she wanted was a cup of coffee and to be home.

The street was basically empty. It was almost eerie how quiet it was, it was as though the whole neighbourhood was dead – but in the distance Anya could hear the beat of a base, the slowly approaching thud of a car with it’s speakers turned up far too loud.

She groaned, thinking it was going to just be some annoying teenagers.

What she didn’t expect were gunshots. The music was turned up so loud that when the car turned around the corner, Anya’s and everyone else’s attentions were drawn to it – and that’s when the first shot was fired. It only took them a few seconds to realize what was happening, but that was a few seconds too many – before any of them had even had time to think about taking cover, the car was in front of them, and more shots were being fired.

Anya realized quicker than the rest.

“Everybody down, **now**!”

She grabbed the annoying detective by the arm and yanked him backwards as hard as she could just as another gunshot sounded. When she heard curses, she turned around to find him on the ground, holding his leg, swearing loudly as blood trickled over his fingers.

She had time to turn around to look at the car only to find a gun pointed at her. She had time to hear the shots before she registered what was happening, and by the time she even thought of ducking, she was already hit.

Thrice.

The force of the shots hitting her vest was so powerful that all the air was knocked out her lungs, once, twice, leaving her on the ground to gasp for air and pray that she hadn’t actually been hurt. Two of the shots had been to her chest, and, amidst the pain and confusion of everything, Anya thanked her stars that she’d made everyone wear a bulletproof vest.

They’d argued with her, but she’d been adamant.

She was sure she’d hear thank you’s about it later.

Her arm hurt in a different way than her chest. She could feel something warm spreading over her fingers and soaking her shirt, and knew it was blood – but, finding herself unable to sit up without pain, Anya just laid there, on the ground, groaning quietly as she listened to the car speeding away.

“Everyone ok?”

Anya groaned in response.

"Bellamy?"

Blake, leaning against a car a few feet from her, responded with a few curses, followed by heavy breathing and groans.

The two other officers were fine, and soon after, an ambulance arrived at the scene. Anya was barely conscious of what was happening, her head swimming in a cocktail of pain and adrenaline and residual fear and confusion, the voices of the paramedics muddling into a buzzing in her ears.

The next thing she knew, she was laying in a hospital bed, with Lexa’s girlfriend taking her pulse from her wrist.

“What-?” Anya groaned, causing the blonde to jump back.

“Hey,” the blonde smiled. “Didn’t realize you were awake.”

Anya frowned. “Did I pass out-?”

“Yes,” Clarke told her. “Not for long. You’ve been out for maybe a good half an hour.”

“Is everyone okay?”

Clarke nodded. “Bellamy got the worst of it, but he’ll be fine in a few months once he gets the cast off. The rest just have bruises, and I’d guess you have maybe a broken rib or two, and that-“ she paused, pointing at Anya’s bandaged arm. “But it’s fine, just a cut. You were lucky, really.”

“I got shot in the arm?”

“The bullet grazed your arm,” Clarke corrected her. “But I stitched it up, it’ll scar, but I’m pretty good – won’t be too ugly. You’ll be taken up to get x-rays, soon – a nurse will come by. Are you in pain?”

Anya breathed in and shook her head. “No, but I will be,” she groaned. When Clarke raised an eyebrow, Anya just shrugged, and added: “I’ve broken ribs before. I know it’s hell.”

“Good, well, then you’ll know that you won’t be allowed back in the field for a good six weeks.”

“I know.”

“And no strenuous exercise, not until I say so-”

“I know.”

Clarke paused when she heard hurried footsteps in the hall, and the complaints of a nurse – and then Lexa stumbled in, looking pale and worried and as though she’d just run half a mile.

“I heard you got shot, are you okay!?”

Clarke walked over and placed a hand on her girlfriend’s arm. “Anya’s fine, Lexa – breathe.”

Lexa frowned. “I am breathing.”

“You’re panicking, a little.”

“Am not.”

“Yes you are,” Anya groaned, sitting up in the bed. “I’m fine, Lex.”

“You got shot,” Lexa argued. “I have every right to be worried.”

“But I’m fine.”

“You got shot.”

Clarke let out a laugh and kissed Lexa’s cheek on her way out. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll be here if you need me – and the nurse will come by soon. Just stay put, alright?”

Anya sighed and resigned to her fate, focusing back on Lexa who was eyeing her with eyes full of concern.

“Lexa, seriously, I’m fine.”

“Anya, you could’ve died.”

“I was wearing a vest.”

“I know, but if you hadn’t- you’d be-“

“I _was_ wearing a vest,” Anya repeated. “And I am fine.”

Lexa let out a shaky breath and sat down in a chair by Anya’s bed. “I know, I know, it’s just…”

“Brings up memories?”

Lexa nodded and said nothing. Anya just shifted a little and sighed. “I’m fine.”

“Your arm is bandaged up.”

“And I have a few broken ribs,” Anya told her. “But I’ll be fine.”

“Do you need anything?”

“Like what?”

“Like, clothes, for example – yours are torn up, probably, or covered in blood.”

Anya shrugged. “I guess.”

“I can call Octavia and tell her to bring your spares from your locker.”

“Does she know my combination?”

“Anya, everyone knows your code, it’s three fives.”

 

* * *

 

It took a total of three hours for Clarke to finally be able to declare Anya fit to go back home. She was told to take it easy, to take painkillers when she needed, and to put ice where it hurt – but it was all stuff she’d heard before, and, with nothing but pain and healing to do, Anya was glad to be able to go back home and sleep.

“Can you help?”

She’d looked at the shirt and decided there was no way she was getting it on without insane amounts of pain. Lexa didn’t even ask, she only came over to help her get the shirt down her back, too – but paused when she saw Anya’s skin.

“Anya?”

“Huh?”

“What’s that on your back?”

“What’s what?”

“Cuts…scratches?”

Anya shrugged. “They’re nothing.”

“Anya-“

“Lexa, are you really that vanilla that you can’t figure out where the scratches are from?”

Anya knew Lexa’s eyes were wide without even having to look, and let out a laugh.

“Who?” Lexa demanded, once Anya was dressed. “Who the fuck have you been having sex like _that_ with?”

Anya tried her best not to laugh, but did so anyway – and groaned in pain. “Don’t make me laugh, Lex.”

“Sorry-“

“And, it was just some girl. From a bar.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t a bobcat?”

“Yes, I’m sure, Lex. Can you just take me home?”

 

* * *

 

In the car, Anya finally took out her phone, and saw that she’d received three missed calls just that afternoon – all from the same unknown number. She almost guessed it was Raven – who else could it have been – but the reason she was calling so many times confused her.

Anya didn’t call her back. She figured she’d call soon again.

She didn’t expect to find her standing in her living room.

“You weren’t supposed to be there,” Raven growled the moment Anya walked in, glaring at her with all her might. “You were supposed to have the day off.”

Anya shut the door behind her and frowned. “What?”

When she turned the lights on, she saw that Raven’s eyes were red and puffy, as though she’d been crying – she didn’t look well, she looked furious but also something else, and Anya, in her tired and slightly drug-infused state, couldn’t figure why she was so angry.

“Why were you there, Anya? Why didn’t you stay home like you- like you were supposed to?”

There was a break in her voice. Just a slight one, but it was that break that made Anya notice the state Raven was in – she was trembling, her hands were shaking, her fists were balled at her side and as white as they could be from the sheer strain of trying keep composed.

“You _knew_ that it was going to happen?”

Raven couldn’t look her in the eye. “I did.”

“And you didn’t tell me? I could’ve been killed!”

“You weren’t supposed to be there at all!” Raven cried. “You had a day off and I- why did you go!?”

“I did have a day off,” Anya growled. “I was called in as an extra, that’s all, if I’d known that I’d be shot by the end of the day I would’ve stayed at home-“

Raven flinched when Anya said the word shot. She didn’t even try to hide it, and Anya saw it, clear as day.

“And besides – how the fuck do you know I was having a day off?”

Raven looked away again, balled her fists, and said nothing.

“Raven, I swear to god-“

“I checked, okay? I- I checked, online, I just wanted to know what day you wouldn’t be there-“

“Why?”

Raven glared at Anya and gritted her teeth. “I’m the one who told them to do it today, okay? I- I suggested today, I told them that because of that protest downtown, that there’d be less faculty and that it’d be easier to get away with it - I suggested today because I thought you definitely _wouldn’t_ be there-“

“But so what? If I hadn’t been there, my colleagues would’ve been in danger anyway - this is your job, Raven, you’re a fucking CI- do you even give a shit about the fact that someone could’ve been killed?”

“I give a shit about _you_ , not them-“

“What?”

Raven faltered, only then realizing what she’d said, and shut up. Anya, too, fell silent, not sure how to process everything – she needed a breath, needed to lie down and take a painkiller, but she couldn’t do that while she had a fuming Raven Reyes pacing around in her living room.

“If you’d just stayed at home, none of this would’ve happened,” Raven muttered. “If you’d just-“

“Why are you so mad at _me?”_ Anya snapped, growing irritated with Raven’s continuous pacing and yelling. She stood up from the couch and took a few steps towards Raven, towering over her in a way that forced the brunette to let out a breath and turn around to start pacing again. “Why?”

“Because you got shot!”

“You’re mad at me because you were _worried_?” Anya demanded. “That’s why you’re yelling at me?”

Raven glared at her. “I wasn’t- okay, fine, so what if I was, I felt guilty, okay? And you just- if you hadn’t fucking gone to work-“

“You know what,” Anya growled, grabbing Raven’s arm and forcing her to stop pacing, “I’m sick of you blaming me for something I had no power over.”

And then, before Raven had any chance to argue, Anya pushed her into the wall and kissed her with all the anger she had left. It only took Raven a few seconds to respond, first with a whimper and then by pushing back, by kissing her back, by grabbing hold of Anya’s waist and somehow knowing exactly where to place her hands without hurting any of the bruises or cuts on her skin.

Anya didn’t want to admit to herself that this was what she’d wanted to do the second she’d seen Raven in her living room.

She didn’t want to think about the fact that in the split second before her body realized she’d be okay, she’d thought about Raven.

She didn’t want to fully realize that in the in-between of ‘am-I-alive-or-dead’, the only person she’d wanted to see had been Raven.

“I just want you to shut up,” Anya growled when she paused for a breath, “I don’t want you to yell, I don’t want you to be angry, because I didn’t fucking _get_ myself shot, so it’s not my fault, and all you’re doing is repeating the same three things over and over so just shut up, okay?”

Raven didn't reply with words. She just kissed Anya again with a hunger that thoroughly confused her.

She pulled away and looked at Raven, but the look on the brunette’s face only added to her confusion. She looked dazed, as though she wasn’t fully there, the look in her eyes was reminiscent of the night she’d shown up high and drunk and called her pretty – but it wasn’t as eerie, the look, it was soft and drowsy and it almost looked as though Raven were confused as well; but about what, that Anya didn’t even know to guess.

“Are you okay?”

The question was almost missed entirely by Anya, Raven said it so quietly she barely caught it at all.

“What do you mean?”

“You got shot,” Raven repeated. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah- I’m fine,” Anya stammered. “Why do you care?”

Raven just shrugged, traced the skin above the collar of Anya’s shirt with the tip of her finger, but said nothing. She just stood there, trapped between Anya and the wall, but looked every bit as content as a person could – Anya hadn’t even noticed that her hand was resting on her hip, not until she suddenly became aware of how relaxed and normal it felt on her skin.

“Are you badly hurt?”

Anya frowned. “Why?”

“You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“Just a few broken ribs,” Anya muttered. “And a cut on my arm. Hurts like a bitch.”

Raven nodded but said nothing, pulled on a hairband around her wrist, chewing on her lip as she tried to gather the courage to say whatever she wanted to say.

“Do you want me to go?”

Anya wanted to say no.

She also knew she should say yes.

But instead, she said nothing at all, and, as moments passed, Raven made no move towards the door.

The pain that had slowly been growing was getting unbearable, and so, after a few more moments, Anya walked away towards the freezer. Raven followed her, quietly, and watched her as she got an ice pack and wrapped it into a cloth before pressing it against the pain. Her shirt was in the way, however, and after a while, Anya sighed and tried to take it off, only to groan when pain sprang at her from both her ribs and her arm.

“Can I-?”

Anya looked at Raven in surprise, but nodded once she realized that the brunette was genuinely offering help.

Raven’s fingers were cool as they skirted over Anya’s skin and took hold of her shirt, pulling it over her head as gently as she could. When she saw the bruises on Anya’s skin, she frowned, but said nothing – but Anya noticed anyway.

“Is your arm-“

“It’s just a cut,” Anya sighed, shifting a little on the couch. “Just grazed my arm.”

For a long while, Anya just sat there, breathing carefully, trying to ignore the pain. But it was hard, with every breath there was stinging and burning pain, pain that made her gasp for air, which only made her feel more pain…and it wouldn’t stop.

“Can you get me the pills from my bag,” Anya finally groaned, leaning her head back on the couch.

Raven came back a moment later with a pill and a glass of water, even though Anya had forgotten to ask for one.

“You don’t look like the type to dry swallow,” she shrugged.

“There’s a type?”

“I don’t know.”

Anya rolled her eyes but swallowed the pill. “And now I wait.”

Raven was sitting on the edge of the couch, looking as though she were ready to run the moment she had to – she looked tense, felt tense, her entire posture seemed somehow scared and wary, it was like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to be doing whatever she was doing, despite the fact that all she was doing was sitting.

“Do you have to be somewhere?”

Raven jumped a little at the sound of Anya’s voice, and glanced at her quickly before shaking her head. “No.”

“Then why do you look like you’re about to run for the door?”

“I-“ Raven paused, shrugging and visibly trying to relax herself. “I don’t know, I guess I just figured you’d want to be alone.”

“Fuck that,” Anya muttered. “I’m alone most of the time anyway.”

Raven looked at her for a long while before nodding and leaning back against the couch.

She said nothing. Neither did Anya.

The silence stretched out until it was almost impermeable, covered the room entirely, leaving Anya to listen to her breaths and her own pulse, and to allow her mind to slowly cloud over from whatever painkillers the pill contained.

“Were you crying?”

“Huh?”

Anya turned her head a little and looked at Raven. “Were you crying before I got here?”

It seemed that Raven hadn’t remembered her puffy red eyes until that moment, because she quickly wiped at them, rubbing at the already raw skin as she tried to think of something to say.

“I can’t think of a lie,” she finally sighed.

That, Anya figured, was as close to a ‘yes’ that she’d get.

“Because you were worried?”

Raven sighed and looked away. After a while, Anya gave up on waiting for a response.

She felt warm and comfortable. She knew it was the painkiller, she knew it was strong, and when she stood up, she knew to expect herself to feel dizzy and unsteady – but the extent of it still surprised her.

What surprised her the most, however, were Raven’s hands on her waist and on her arm, steadying her when she stumbled over the edge of the carpet. They were firm and yet so gentle, and when Anya glanced at Raven’s face, she saw her eyebrows were furrowed as though in concern.

“I’m fine,” Anya mumbled, “But…thanks.”

Raven didn’t say anything as she helped Anya over to the bedroom. Anya watched her, noticed the pensive look, and figured she’d give her space; whatever she was thinking about seemed big, seemed worrisome, and Anya didn’t want her to get angry again. She was tired of arguing.

Once Anya had gotten to bed, and Raven had pulled her shoes off and helped her get tucked in, Raven left.

Or so Anya thought, anyway. She fell asleep so soon after her head hit the pillow that she didn’t know that Raven hadn’t left.

In fact, she didn’t leave for a good few hours. She sat in the chair in the corner of Anya’s bedroom, curled up under a blanket, and watched her sleep, carefully, eyes fixed on the slow rise and fall of her chest, fighting the urge to fall asleep herself. She picked at the loose ends of string on her shirt, chewed her lip, and let herself fall deep into thought – but never once did her eyes leave Anya’s sleeping form, not until the phone on her knee buzzed some minutes past midnight.

She read the message, frowned, and then sighed in resignation.

For the brief moment that she stood in the doorway, hesitant about leaving, Anya awoke – she wasn’t fully awake, but awake enough to see the figure in the doorway and the glance Raven threw over her shoulder before she walked out and away. When the door shut quietly just a few moments later, Anya had already fallen back asleep.

 

* * *

 

When Raven left Anya’s apartment, she tried her best to be quiet. She closed the door as slowly as she could, hoping Anya didn’t wake – she didn’t want to bother her, not when she was hurt and tired and needed her rest.

She also didn’t want to worry her.

The sky was overcast by dark clouds, hanging low overhead as Raven snuck through alleys and over fences to avoid being seen. Anya’s apartment was in an area of town that wasn’t typical for her, and being seen there would’ve raised questions. And perhaps, just maybe, she enjoyed the quiet dark alleys and the challenge of climbing over dumpsters and fences to reach her destination.

Not to mention they were all shortcuts to help her get back home as fast as she could.

She never knew when to expect a text message, but whenever she got one, she had to go. She had no choice.

This time, it had been Niylah.

**Aden won’t go to sleep, Nia doesn’t want him around so you get to take him again. At the apt.**

Raven just hurried her steps and cursed everything in her life for making it so complicated. She didn’t want to be taking care of a one-year-old, and yet, she was; she didn’t want to be ordered around from one gig to the next without any say in the matter, and yet, she was – she didn’t want to have so little control in her own life, and yet, she didn’t.

Aden wasn’t her kid. If he had been, maybe everything would’ve been easier – but he wasn’t, he was the son of her best friend, now long dead; he was the only living memory of her, and although Raven loved him to bits, she wished she hadn’t been tasked with taking care of him.

But he hadn’t had anyone.

Raven hadn’t had anyone, once – she still didn’t, really – but at least now she was an adult, responsible for herself, and she wasn’t going to let a baby so small be left to his own devices.

It had been over a year. Aden had grown, and Raven had grown to love him, and, as time had passed, she’d realized she did have someone. Aden had her, and she had him.

It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“Here, take him,” was all that Niylah said before shoving Aden into Raven’s arms, the moment she came up the stairs to the door of the apartment. “I have to go-“

“Yeah, yeah, I know, run,” Raven replied, ushering her out of the door. “I know she expects you back as soon as possible.”

Niylah offered a quick smile before disappearing down the stairs, leaving Raven alone with Aden.

Raven looked at the little baby in her arms, gurgling and playing with the string of her hoodie, and sighed. “Why won’t you go to sleep, _papito?_ Hmm?”

She didn’t have to look up to know that she was being watched. This time, at least, it wasn’t someone entirely irritating – it was Jackson, a guy Raven barely knew and didn’t care to know, but he didn’t scare her, or bother her in any way.

“There’s beer in the fridge,” she told him as she walked in, balancing Aden on her hip. "And pizza, if Niylah didn't eat it."

“I’m good,” Jackson muttered, slumping onto the couch and turning on the TV. He wouldn’t bother her, Raven knew that, and was thankful for it. She really wasn’t in the mood for talking, least of all with him.

Of course, she would’ve preferred not having to have a chaperone whenever she was with Aden, but it wasn’t something she had any power over. Nia didn’t trust her alone with Aden, and for good reason: Raven knew that if she ever found herself alone with the baby, she would run away with him, as fast as she could, and never look back.

She had to get him away. But for now, all she could do was wait, hoping that Nia would slip up and that Anya and her friends would arrest her, for good.

Before that, there was nothing she could do.

Aden let out a loud cry to get Raven’s attention, and with a smile she turned to look at him. “Well, at least someone’s happy to see me,” she cooed, walking over to the kitchen with the baby on her hip. “And looks like you’re hungry, too – what will it be, peas or bananas?”

There was only a jar of mushed peas, hidden behind a six-pack of beer, and so it had to do.

It took her some time to get Aden to eat his food. He didn’t like peas, and so half of it ended up on his and Raven’s shirt, meaning she had to give him a bath.

“See, Aden,” Raven explained as she scrubbed a pea-mush stain off of his cheek, “Food goes in your tummy-“ she poked his belly button, drawing an excited giggle from him. “In there. All the way from your mouth, down to your tummy, it doesn’t belong on your clothes, or mine, okay?”

“Okkay,” Aden repeated after her, though Raven knew very well that he didn’t actually know a word of what she’d said.

And then he splashed some water in her face, and Raven couldn’t help but laugh.

She may have been sleep deprived and exhausted, but Aden was always a ray of sunshine, and was always capable of making her smile no matter how shitty her day had been.

“Alright, little man, time to get out of the bath,” she smiled, reaching for Aden.

“No!”

He wasn’t a master of words quite yet, but he did know how to say no. And he said it a lot.

“Aden-“ Raven warned, grinning a little. “Come on, you’ll get cold.”

“No!”

“Aaden…”

“Noo…” Aden replied, splashing some more.

“Don’t you want a hug?” Raven asked, deciding to change tactics. “Because your Tía Rae is feeling very lonely…”

She even pouted.

That got Aden moving. He stood up and came to the edge of the bath, and Raven snatched him up, quickly bundling him into a towel before he had time to protest.

“Ha! Got you, you little monster!”

Aden just laughed.

Raven wished he’d never stop being so happy.

 

* * *

 

An hour later, Raven was laying on her back in bed, with Aden resting on top of her chest. He was fast asleep, little fists curled up near his face, and Raven was almost asleep herself.

She couldn’t stop thinking about Anya. She couldn’t get her out of her head.

More to the point, she couldn’t get the image of Anya being shot at out of her head.

She’d been there, she’d been the one driving, she’d seen Anya and her heart had gone so cold she’d thought that for that brief moment, she’d died – she’d been so sure Anya wouldn’t be there that she hadn’t even known how to react, and by the time she would’ve had a chance to do something, Anya was already on the ground.

When she’d gotten back to the warehouse, surrounded by people she only vaguely knew congratulating one another on their shooting, she’d felt nauseous. She’d felt so sick that she hadn’t even been able to stand up, she’d sat down in a corner and pretended to be sipping on a beer while the others brought out whatever booze and drugs they’d brought with them.

After waiting a sufficient amount of time, everyone else was high and drunk out of their minds, and Raven had gotten the chance to slip away.

She’d gotten into Anya’s apartment with more ease than she’d known to expect. The latch on her window was so easy to pry open that Raven found herself worrying about other intruders, and decided to come back some time to tighten the screws around it.

Just in case.

And then she’d paced around Anya’s apartment for hours, unsure of what to do, unsure of what to feel – she’d been so terrified she hadn’t even been able to think straight. She’d cried, she’d been furious, she’d worked herself up to a complete mess of emotions that she couldn’t control - and just then, in the midst of her mess of emotions, Anya had walked in.

When Anya had walked through the door, Raven had almost fainted. Her head had spun for the briefest of moments, relief washing over her in a wave of complete relaxation and ease – but then, the anger had set in.

She hadn’t meant to get so angry. She wasn’t angry at Anya, she really wasn’t, but she’d lost herself in the moment, and she’d yelled at Anya for getting shot when really, it was her fault. She should have warned Anya when she’d had the chance, but she hadn’t done it, and there was no way she could go back and redo it – Anya had been shot, Anya had been hurt, all because Raven had been foolish enough to trust that she wouldn’t be there.

She’d been mad at herself, not Anya, but she’d let so many words slip without caution that she feared she’d done irreparable damage. When Anya had cut her off, Raven had been thankful. Beyond so. She’d wanted Anya to do something to stop her, slap her, yell back at her, tell her to leave – but she’d kissed her, so hard and rough that Raven’s senses had slipped away from her altogether.

And she wasn't mad at Raven for yelling at her. She hadn't even mentioned it, there'd just been a look of understanding, and Raven felt relieved.

“She’s fine,” Raven whispered, raising her hand up to stroke the fine golden hairs on Aden’s head. “She’s fine.”

But it wasn’t good enough. She didn’t like that she had to fear for Aden on a daily basis, nor did she like that now, she also feared for Anya’s safety. She’d always feared for her own, and for a long time, she’d had Gina to care for, and then Aden. But now, Gina was gone. She was safe, wherever she was, Raven knew that. She didn’t believe in God, or in heaven, but she wanted to believe that Gina was in a better place.

And Aden…she’d grown accustomed to worrying about him.

But Anya?

Anya was something new. Anya was something frightening. Raven didn’t like that her heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest whenever Anya was around. Raven didn’t like the fact that she cared so much about Anya’s safety, about her comfort, she didn’t like the fact that she couldn’t stop herself from going back to her – she hated that she’d let herself slip into a comfortable arrangement with Anya, she should’ve never have done that, and yet, she had.

And there was no going back. The only place Raven felt safe was with Anya, and now that she’d gotten a taste for how safety felt, she couldn’t stop yearning for more. She wanted to feel like that all the time, she knew that she deserved it, and that Aden deserved it, too – she had to get away from this, from what her life was now, but she had nothing to do at the moment except wait.

She couldn’t just walk out. She had to do it the right way.

She wanted to be able to sleep through the night without worrying that one of her roommates would set the stove on fire in their drunken confusion, or that someone would attack her in the dead of night. She wanted to be able to have a normal job, one which didn’t involve anything illegal whatsoever, where she could just wake up and go do her day and come home like everyone else did. She didn't want to have to be afraid of fucking up, in fear of getting hurt or starved for some stupid mistake - she didn't want to have to be afraid of the people she was around, not on a day-to-day basis, and really, not at all.

She just wanted a normal life.

“And you’ll have a normal life too,” Raven murmured, kissing Aden’s forehead gently. “I promise, _papito_ , you’ll get out of here, and you won’t even remember any of this…you’ll be good. You’ll have a proper family, and a fancy bike…it’s gonna be awesome.”

Aden didn’t respond.

After all, he was just a little over a year old. Not to mention the fact that he was fast asleep.

But Raven just chuckled and relaxed, shifting slowly to be more comfortable, and closed her eyes. For that night, she was as comfortable as she could get.

And that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see? i told you nobody would die
> 
> and anya wore a vest because that's in the police officer's handbook i think at least in my canon and it's at least in the handbook of being a proper lesbian
> 
> also baby aden has become a motif in all of my writings, he's everywhere and i love him to bits


	7. no one would you see

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it seems i've just started writing long-ass fucking chapters but it's not like any of you are complaining

It took five days for Anya to be on the brink of losing her mind.

Five days of sitting at home, aching and sore and unable to focus on anything because of the pain. Five days of trying to breathe normally and failing, miserably.

Five days of barely any human contact, other than Lexa.

And she still had two weeks to go till she’d be allowed back to work.

She was bored to say the least, and, somehow, in her bored state, all she could really think about was Raven.

She wanted to see her again. She wanted to ask her questions – she wanted to understand, wanted to figure out the brunette, wanted to hear her tell her why she’d been so angry at her about getting shot, and all the reasons behind it.

She liked to think that she knew why she’d been so angry.

Anya also knew exactly why, on that afternoon, she printed out the incoming calls log of her phone from the past few months, and why she began going through the numbers, one by one, looking for any repeats.

After an hour of staring at numbers, she had two things – a headache and a number that had repeated not twice, not thrice, but six times in the past four months.

She looked it up online, and found out that it was a pay phone, located in the parking lot of the waterpark.

“Of course,” she muttered, punching the number in to her phone, “I should’ve thought of this before.”

She pressed the call button before she’d actually thought of anything to say. She wasn’t even so sure Raven would answer – how was she to know that she’d be there, within earshot of the phone, and would bother to get over and answer?

The phone rang for a good long while before the line was picked up and an annoyed voice answered.

“Who the fuck is this?”

Anya breathed a sigh of relief when she heard it was Raven. “Anya.”

“Why the fuck- how are you calling this phone?”

“You’re not the only one with a brain.”

Raven paused before saying something. “Why are you calling?”

Anya sighed. “I don’t know.”

“You just called me for no reason?”

“If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine,” Anya snapped. “I just like knowing that I can get in touch with you, too, that I’m not just a toy you call whenever you need some fun.”

She wasn’t sure where the words came from. She wasn’t sure she was even thinking about what she was saying.

But then she realized the line had gone dead, and felt disappointment punch her straight in the gut.

Cursing, Anya let her phone drop to the couch, offended and hurt that Raven would disappear like that – she’d had something to say, she’d wanted to talk, and the fact that Raven had so coldly ignored was just…rude.

And it hurt.

Anya didn’t like that being ignored by Raven hurt her, but she found herself unable to make it stop. She couldn’t wish the sour taste in her mouth away, she couldn’t tell the gnawing heavy weight in her gut to leave – she wished she could, but she could not.

And so she turned on the TV and decided to ignore everything else for the rest of the evening.

“I won’t answer, the next time she calls,” she muttered to herself. “She won’t even care, anyway.”

She watched a full hour and a half of “The Price Is Right” before she was awoken from her daze by the shrill ringing of her cellphone.

It was the number she’d called.

Anya declined the call and put her phone down, but just moments later, the phone rang again.

She declined it again.

But the third time the phone rang, Anya realized Raven wasn’t going to stop, and picked it up with the intention of telling her to stop.

“Stop calling me,” Anya snapped. “You can’t just hang up and then call me back an hour later- do you even care that I might’ve had something important to say?“

“I-“

“Do you even care?”

“I’m sorry, I had to go,” Raven groaned. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“Didn’t have a choice? You could’ve at least had the common courtesy to say bye-”

“I-“

“You’re going to tell me it’s not my business, aren’t you?”

Anya heard heavy breathing, and for a while, thought Raven wasn’t going to answer.

“No,” Raven finally muttered. “I won’t…it’s just complicated.”

“Try me.”

After a long pause, Raven drew in a sharp breath, and spoke.

“Ontari came over for a little surprise visit,” she said, speaking quickly and as though she were trying her best to sound normal. “And I told her I wouldn’t fuck her, so she beat me up.”

Anya couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. “She…what?”

“I wouldn’t fuck her,” Raven repeated. “As a thanks, she kicked me around for a bit.”

Whatever anger might have resided in Anya’s mind had dissolved the moment she heard those words.

“Are you- are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Raven sighed. “Look, I’m sorry I hung up, I seriously didn’t-“

“It’s fine,” Anya interrupted. “It’s…”

She couldn’t find any words. All she was thinking about was the fact that Raven had admitted to being hurt, and now, every wince and labored breath that Anya heard over the phone made her cringe.

It was a while before Anya realized she was still on the phone.

“Raven?”

“Huh?”

“You’re still there?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you hurt?”

Anya could almost hear Raven shrug. “Yeah, but it’s fine.”

Silence befell them again – it felt heavy and impenetrable, and all that Anya really wished for was that it would just end. Because that’s what she wanted, she realized it all of a sudden with her phone to her ear and all her attentions focused on the sound of Raven’s breathing on the other end, she just wanted the silence to end – she just wanted to talk to Raven.

“Can I be honest for a second?”

Anya nodded before realizing Raven couldn’t see it. “Um, yeah. Sure.”

She counted the seconds it took Raven to speak again.

Eleven.

“I do care,” Raven finally sighed.

Anya frowned and almost said ‘about what’, despite more or less knowing – but she wanted to be certain, she wanted Raven to say it and not leave it half-way like she did with most things.

“About you,” Raven added, wincing a little – from pain or from what she’d said, Anya couldn’t tell. “I care about you.”

Anya felt like someone had taken a cast-iron frying pan and slammed it in her face. For a long while, she just sat there, holding the phone to her ear, mouth hanging slightly ajar, unable to even form a coherent thought.

“Anya-?”

The break in Raven’s voice made Anya’s heart twinge in pain, and she quickly stood up and forced herself to say something.

“I’m here.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I did,” Anya said, eyes scouring the room in search for her car keys. “I just can’t think of anything to say-“

“I know, it’s stupid, I shouldn’t have said anything, you didn’t sign up for this-“

“No, wait,” Anya interjected. “Stop.”

Raven fell silent, and Anya, suddenly finding herself at a loss for words, stumbled to think of something concrete to say.

“I care about you, too.” Anya forced the words out – she felt them, knew they were true, but the choking feeling in her throat when she said them was foreign and annoying and, in a way, painful. “I do, and you’re right, I didn’t sign up for this.”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“Not like I did, either. But it’s fine.”

Anya held the phone on her shoulder for a second while pulling her coat on – a hiss of pain left her lips when she moved her left arm, and Anya could hear Raven’s breath hitch in her throat long before she said anything.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Anya said, trying her best to be quiet as she opened the door and slipped outside. “I just moved my arm wrong.”

“It still hurts?”

“Like hell.”

There was a long pause, during which Anya managed to maneuver herself into her car and set up the headphones so that she could drive while still keeping Raven on the line.

“Anya?”

“Hmm?”

“Oh, you’re still there.”

“I am.”

“I just-“ Raven sighed. “I’m sorry this got complicated.”

“Complicated?”

“It was just sex, and I fucked it up-”

Anya could’ve sworn she heard a sob. “No, listen, it…you didn’t fuck anything up-”

“But I did, I went and caught feelings for you and I know you’re probably laughing at how stupid this is-“

“I’m not laughing, and it’s not stupid.”

Raven sighed. “I should go.”

“No, don’t you dare,” Anya snapped. “You barely ever talk. So talk.”

“I don’t know what to talk about.”

“If I ask you a question, will you promise to give me an honest answer?”

Anya had driven a whole block before Raven finally answered.

“Fine.”

When suddenly given a promise of answers, Anya found herself at a loss for questions.

“Shit, wait, let me think.”

A minute or so later, Anya finally came up with a question. “Did you cry when you heard I’d been

shot?”

Raven let out a long sigh. “Yes.”

“Because you were worried?”

“Yes.”

“Why couldn’t you just say so? Why did you get so fucking mad at me-“

“I…” Raven paused, once again. “I was there – I was driving, I was so sure you wouldn’t be there, and then, you were, and I swear to god I almost ran off the road and had a heart attack – I thought you’d be safe but you weren’t and I just…I was fucking terrified. All I saw was that you got shot, I didn’t know you were wearing a vest, I thought-“

Anya almost ran off the road herself. She didn’t, despite the fact that her ribs ached and the fact that she had been explicitly banned from driving for a good week or so – but it’d been five days, and she was fine. She hadn’t taken any painkillers, and she was a good driver. The only reason she wasn’t allowed to drive was because she wasn’t supposed to be doing anything strenuous, and, well, turning the steering wheel was somewhat a stretch – but it was just pain, and it wasn’t even that bad.

“You were there?” she finally asked, still unable to wrap her head around the idea that Raven could’ve been there in that car. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t realize…”

“You couldn’t have known,” Raven muttered.

Anya came to the road that led up to the waterpark and realized she hadn’t told Raven that she was coming.

“Are you alone?”

“Why?”

“Are you?”

“Yeah?”

“Good.”

“Why does it matter if I’m alone-“

But then Anya came up to the park, and saw Raven by the phone – the brunette looked shocked beyond belief, her eyes were wide and her mouth hung slightly ajar when Anya pulled up right in front of her.

“Get in,” Anya said.

“What?”

“Get in, Raven.”

“I- are you even allowed to be driving?”

Anya frowned. “How could you know that?”

Raven shrugged. “I’ve broken ribs before. Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Come on, get in, my chest hurts.”

“Let me drive.”

“No.”

“Anya-“

“I’m driving, now get in the damn car.”

Raven did – but she sat in the backseat.

“Why aren’t you sitting up front?”

“People could see.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Right.”

The ride was quiet the whole way from the park back to Anya’s house. When they came to the city, Raven laid down low in Anya’s back seat, and she even waited a good while after they’d stopped before she got out of Anya’s car and hurried over to the door.

“I don’t want to be seen here,” she muttered once she’d gotten in through the door. “And you don’t want me seen here, either.”

“Got it.”

Anya finally turned around, and, in the light of her apartment, finally saw that Raven was, in fact, hurt.

Her lip was split, there was a hint of a growing bruise around her right eye, and cuts wherever she could see – a nasty scrape on her hand, a cut on her forehead, and no doubt her body was covered in bruises beneath her clothes.

All Anya could really do was sigh.

“I’m fine,” Raven told her. “Honestly, I know it probably looks bad-“

“You don’t have to lie, Raven.”

“Okay, fine, it hurts like a bitch.”

“There we go. Not so hard, is it?”

Raven just rolled her eyes and followed Anya when she headed to the bedroom.

“Sit down,” Anya told her, gesturing at the bed. “And I don’t want to hear any complaints.”

She went over to the bathroom and came back with a first-aid kit, which she tossed onto the bed before going over to get two ice packs.

“One for me, one for you,” Anya told Raven as she handed her one. “Now take off your shirt.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

Raven winced when she pulled off her shirt, and Anya in turn grimaced when she saw how she looked.

Most of what she saw were fresh bruises, red ones with just a slight tint of darker red in their centers. But there were fewer older ones, dark blue and greenish yellow in color, ones which Anya knew couldn’t have happened that day.

“What the hell did she do, run you over with a herd of horses?”

“You could say that,” Raven muttered as she placed the ice pack Anya had given her to her eye. “She’s got steel-toed boots.”

“And she…she didn’t do anything else?”

“What?”

“You said she wanted to fuck you, did she-“

Raven’s eyes widened and she shook her head quickly. “Oh, no, she didn’t- she didn’t touch me like that. I told her I’d tell Roan if she did - he likes me, I think, at least somewhat. And Roan’s Nia’s son, so…but that didn’t stop her from kicking my ass for being a smartass-“

Anya nodded, feeling slightly relieved, and reached for the first aid kit. “Lie back.”

Raven let out a groan as the effort to lie back slowly strained her stomach and the bruises along it. “They’re just bruises,” she muttered. “They just need time.”

“Just shut up.”

When Raven heard a jar being opened, she looked up, eyeing Anya curiously. “What are you doing? What is that?”

“Dit Da Jaú,” Anya told her. “Chinese medicine. It’ll help with the pain, and the swelling – just trust me.”

Raven frowned but laid back down and let Anya do whatever she was doing.

“It smells nice,” she commented after a while.

“I put in some ginseng and peony oil, it’d smell awful otherwise,” Anya muttered as she spread a dab of the ointment on a bruise, causing Raven’s muscles to tense up. “Just relax.”

“It smells like you,” Raven continued. “You use this often?”

Anya let out a chuckle. “All the time.”

“Why?”

“I do martial arts,” Anya said, trying her best to keep the tone of her voice as calm as possible to keep Raven calm, too. “Bruises are a natural part of that.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“Not something you can look up online,” Anya smirked. Raven just rolled her eyes.

After having finished spreading the ointment on every bruise Anya had found on Raven’s stomach and chest and arms, she set the jar aside and eyed Raven carefully. “This’ll hurt, a little – okay?”

“What are you doing now?”

“Trust me, okay? I won’t make the pain worse, this’ll help later-“

“Okay, sure, do whatever…”

Anya had done this a thousand times to herself, and a few times on Lexa – but it was different with Raven, usually she only did it on a few bruises but Raven was covered in them, and clearly in far more pain than she was letting on.

But she pushed two fingers to the centre of a bruise anyway, gently at first, but slowly adding pressure as she began massaging and rubbing at the skin. She could feel Raven’s muscles tense around her fingers, and saw her fingers curl around the sheets, almost turning as white as the fabric bunched between them – quiet hisses and winces left Raven’s lips as Anya kept going, massaging each bruise for a good while before moving on to the next.

“You’re sure this works?” Raven uttered, frowning at Anya. “Because it hurts.”

“It’s supposed to,” Anya hummed, moving on to a bruise by Raven’s clavicle. “It gets the blood moving.”

“It hurts.”

“It would hurt even if I did nothing. This’ll make it hurt less.”

Raven simply nodded and said nothing, focusing on not swearing each time Anya’s fingers found a new bruise to massage.

“Your back is probably hurt too, right?”

Raven sighed. “A little. Not much. Ontari likes to go for soft tissue. Stomachs especially, she likes to see people double over in pain. Bonus points if they vomit.”

Anya didn’t say anything about the fact that Raven’s words revealed that this wasn’t the first time Ontari had laid hands on her.

There was only one bigger bruise on Raven’s lower back, one which was so deeply colored and large that massaging it drew a string of curses, both in Spanish and in English, from Raven’s lips. But Anya was quick, and helped Raven turn back to lay on her back.

“Are you done now?”

“No, you still have cuts that need to be cleaned.”

“I can do that myself, too, you know.”

“Just shut up,” Anya chuckled, shaking her head. “Don’t be so stubborn.”

And then Anya saw a smile spread onto Raven’s lips, and warmth erupted in her chest, forcing a smile onto her lips too.

“You do care.”

It wasn’t a statement of any kind, it wasn’t a question – Raven was in awe, she was almost surprised, even though they both knew that what Raven had pointed out wasn’t anything new at all.

“That’s news to you?”

“No…” Raven shrugged, offering Anya her arm to look over. “I’m just not used to it – to this – that’s all.”

“Neither am I,” Anya mused, dabbing a cut on Raven’s arm with some antiseptic solution.

“But you have friends?”

At that, Anya raised an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen the photos in your bookshelf, and I’ve seen you around town…” Raven shrugged. “I notice things.”

“But we’re not just friends, are we?” Anya asked, smiling a little.

Raven looked at Anya almost shyly. “No, I guess not.”

The back of Raven’s hand was properly scraped, the bloody skin dotted with gravel and dirt, and it took Anya a long while to get each piece of stone out from the bloody cuts before she could finally wrap a bandage around it. Her other hand was scraped on the palm, where skin had been partially torn off – Anya repeated the same routine, taking extra care to ensure the bandage stayed in place but was also tight enough, but not too tight.

“Can you sit up?”

Raven groaned but sat up anyway, still keeping the ice pack pressed to her eye. She jumped a little when Anya’s fingers touched her cheek, but relaxed visibly when the touch lingered and remained gentle – Anya skimmed her eyes over Raven’s face, only noticing a split lip and the cut on her forehead, and sighed.

“I don’t understand it sometimes,” she muttered, running her thumb over Raven’s lip. “Why you stay, when they do things like this.”

For a brief moment, Raven said nothing, not realizing Anya had meant it as a question – her eyes were shut, and though she tried her best to conceal it, she was drinking in the feel of Anya’s thumb on her lip, so gentle and soft and tentative she could’ve burst.

“I have my reason,” she sighed, once she’d realized Anya was waiting for an answer.

“One reason?”

Raven nodded, but said nothing – she’d put the ice pack down, and was watching Anya carefully, warily, as though expecting her to be upset. But Anya nodded, accepting that Raven wasn’t ready to explain, or that she was too tired to – her thoughts were more focused on the cut on Raven’s lip, and on the overwhelming desire she had to press her own lips against Raven’s.

She was mostly focused on the latter.

“Stay here.”

When Anya came back with a small cup filled with a clear liquid, Raven frowned. “What is that?”

“Salt water.”

“For what?”

“Your lip.”

“Won’t it hurt?”

“Like hell,” Anya told her with a smirk. “But it’ll also heal it quicker.”

Raven hissed in pain when Anya dabbed the salt water onto her lip. She frowned, tried her best not to curse, punching the bed to distract herself – but it did hurt, it was salt seeping into an open wound, and it was nowhere near pleasant.

“Why do I feel like you’re taking revenge on me for all the times I annoyed you?”

Anya chuckled. “I’m not, trust me. I don’t like seeing you in pain.”

“Are you sure about that?”

The look in Raven’s eyes revealed what she meant, and Anya rolled her eyes. “You know _that_ isn’t _real_ pain. And I don’t even- you’re the one giving _me_ pain, with all the scratches and bites-”

“Only because you fuck me so hard I have to-“

“But you want it hard and rough.”

“Oh I do,” Raven smirked. “And you like that about me.”

Anya rolled her eyes. “I guess.”

And then she was done. Raven sat there, staring at her hands, shoulders hunched and suddenly looking wounded and shy, and Anya found herself at a loss for words, or actions.

“Stay there,” she muttered, standing up and heading over to the closet.

When she came back a while later with a pair of leggings, a shirt, and a hoodie, Raven frowned.

“Your clothes are dirty and torn up, and your shirt is bloody – just put them on, you look like you’re freezing,” Anya told her.

The leggings bunched around Raven’s ankles because they were almost a foot too long for her. The hoodie, too, looked enormous – Anya liked her hoodies oversized herself, and so on Raven, it looked huge. But that was also adorable, in a way, and Anya couldn’t help but chuckle when she saw Raven rolling up the sleeves of the hoodie just to be able to use her hands.

She hadn’t missed the way Raven’s ribs had shown up from under her skin, or the hollow dip of her stomach. She looked starved, barely just skin and bones, and Anya did not like the look – she hadn’t looked like that a few months ago, a few months ago she had looked almost healthy, that was if you didn’t count all the bruises and cuts and little injuries she had at all times.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Are you getting enough to eat?”

Raven went quiet and shuffled her feet. “Why do you ask?”

“You look thinner.”

Raven shrugged. “I…”

“Don’t lie,” Anya reminded her.

Raven shot her an annoyed look. “I’m trying to stop lying, okay? But there’s so much that you don’t know and I can’t just quickly answer a question when there’s so much to explain-“

“So explain it to me, then,” Anya said, sitting down on the bed. “Because I want to know.”

For an agonizingly long while, Raven stood there, staring at Anya – but then she sighed and slumped down onto the bed, laying on her back so that she didn’t have to look at Anya.

“You’ve been on the Azgeda case for a while now. You know what things Nia does to people.”

“A lot of things,” Anya agreed.

“Sadistic things,” Raven muttered. “She likes the power. And she has the power. She- she has the money. And if you’re in the gang, you work for the gang – it’s not like any of us could get any other job with this fucking tattoo-“

Anya nodded. “True.”

“So she controls your salary. And if you mess up…she might not give you your pay for the month. Or two,” Raven sighed, reaching up to rub at her temple. “And I do fine. I save my money, and I don’t mess up very often.”

“So then why do you look so starved?”

“Because…I told you I have a place, with people. It’s owned by Nia, four other people live there…and there’s this girl. Harper. She’s got a kid, and she refused to be the getaway driver for this one gig because she had to take care of her kid, so Nia just hasn’t given her any money for two months. And I can’t stand by and watch a kid be starved, Harper isn’t smart enough to steal, and she can’t take that risk, so I- I share what I have.”

Anya’s eyes widened, and she looked at Raven with a mixed expression of surprise and awe.

“Don’t look so surprised, did you really think I was a terrible person?”

“No, I just- that’s awful. And so good of you.”

“I give them most of what I have. I can make do with less.”

“You’re starving.”

“Almost starving,” Raven corrected her, raising a hand to wave her finger at Anya. “Just almost.”

“Do you want to eat? I can make something-“

“No, I couldn’t-“

“Raven, if you’re willing to give someone else your food, you should be willing to take some of mine.”

Raven glanced at Anya with a little smile on her lips. “You’re stubborn.”

“So are you.”

“But I was explaining. Because I…I know it annoys you that you don’t know much, so I just…I wanna explain.”

Anya nodded. “Then do.”

Raven let out a long sigh, and for a while, thought over what to say.

“You asked me earlier,” she began, “Why I stay. And I said I have a reason.”

Anya nodded.

“It’s…” Raven sighed again. It was clear that she was struggling to find the words, it was clear as day that these were things that she didn’t talk about, things that she buried far away and ignored and had probably sworn to herself never to let see the light of day – but here she was, laying in Anya’s bed in Anya’s clothes, under Anya’s watchful yet gentle eye, and she felt comfortable, despite the fact that she was letting down all of her walls.

She’d let one brick slip, and now they were all coming down. And she couldn’t stop it.

“I never even had a chance,” Raven said quietly. “My mom was part of the gang, but I barely ever saw her…they, the gang, they were my family, not a good one, but I did get clothed and fed, and I just got used to that. And I- I didn’t think anything of it. I went to juvie for the first time when I was eleven, and then only got out for a few months a year later only to go right back, and then I was suddenly eighteen with nowhere else to go- so I came back. But I never…I never liked it. I don’t like them, I don’t like the way they live, I hate the way there isn’t a moment where I feel safe…even the waterpark, which is my place, it isn’t safe, everyone knows where it is and it’s just exhausting…and I’d give everything I have to leave. I would.”

“Then why won’t you?” Anya asked. “You could get into the witness protection program, leave, and never look back-“

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Nia has something over all of us,” Raven muttered. “Me, too.”

“What does she have over you?”

“Promise you won’t tell?”

“Who would I tell?”

Raven sighed. “Sorry, I just- okay.”

Anya waited a long while. She had nowhere to go, was patient, and all she really wanted was to know what Raven was all about.

She wanted to understand.

“There was this girl, Gina. She and I, we grew up together, we were like sisters…so at first, Nia would use her to keep me in line. She would hurt Gina instead of me, or hurt me when she needed to control Gina-“

An involuntary shudder ran over Raven’s body, and Anya instinctively laid a hand on Raven’s arm, drawing a faint smile from Raven’s lips.

“And then, a little over a year ago, she had a kid. Aden. And then she- she died, got killed,” Raven’s voice broke and fell into a whisper, and Anya felt a choking feeling in her throat when she saw Raven tense up to fight the urge to cry. “She messed up, really bad, and Nia just-“

Raven made a gunshot gesture with her hand.

Anya understood, and sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“But Aden, he’s…he was tiny. He was barely two weeks old, and so I- I went to the hospital and said that he was mine. I don’t know how it worked, but it did, legally he’s my kid, it’s in the birth certificate and all, if I hadn’t taken him nobody would’ve…and now he’s what Nia keeps over my head.”

“Where is he now?”

“She has someone else take care of him now, at night,” Raven muttered. “She lets me take care of him during the day, but never alone, I think she trusts me anymore. And I- I can’t afford mistakes. I can’t, who knows when she decides she’ll start hurting him instead of me-“

Anya shuddered at the thought. She felt nauseous at just the idea of a little baby being threatened with pain, and felt sick to her stomach knowing that Raven had so much pressure over herself.

“And that’s why I do what I do, with you guys,” Raven sighed. “I just- I want Aden out of there, before he learns their ways- I don’t want him to have memories from there. I don’t want to be his mom, I want him to have a good life, but first I have to get him out of there but I can’t do that…so I’m bringing the whole shit show down.”

Anya didn’t know what to say.

She had known to expect it to be complicated, but never in her wildest dreams would she have guessed it to be this complicated.

“Are you okay with…with what I just said?”

Anya frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Raven shrugged and sat up. “It’s just…I didn’t tell you because I was worried you’d see me differently-“

“Which I do.”

Raven paled, to which Anya quickly added: “It’s not a bad thing. I- I didn’t know anything about you. And now I do. And it’s like you’re more of a person, now. Less of a mystery.”

Raven smiled faintly, and Anya gave her a nudge. “Didn’t expect you to be basically a mom. That was a surprise.”

“I’m not his mom,” Raven corrected her. “I’m his Tía Rae.”

“Oh, he speaks Spanish?”

“A little. Gina always wanted him to. Not that he speaks much of anything, he’s only a little over a year old.”

“Ah.”

“And I-“ Raven was interrupted by a growl from her stomach. “I’m hungry.”

Anya smiled and stood up. “Good. Noodles or rice?”

“Whichever’s faster,” Raven muttered. “I haven’t eaten for two days.”

That caused Anya’s smile to drop. “Raven-“

“I told you why-“

“That’s not making do. That’s barely surviving.”

“But I am surviving,” Raven reminded her. “And I’ll pay you back for the food when you-“

“No, definitely not.”

“Anya.”

“Just come to the kitchen, sit down, and let me make you some food. Ok?”

Raven followed her sheepishly enough, though she refused to sit down – she stood by Anya, and helped her whenever she could, and when they sat down to eat, Anya saw Raven hesitating for a brief second.

“What is it?”

“I-“ Raven laughed. “I don’t know how to use chopsticks.”

Anya hadn’t even thought of it, she’d just set out the table like she usually did, only adding an extra plate.

“There’s forks in the second drawer on the left.”

Raven’s laugh, however, echoed in Anya’s mind, as a promise of something new, as something that Anya’s heart flutter in a way she’d never felt before…and she wasn’t afraid.

 

* * *

 

That night, Anya didn’t sleep alone.

That night, she crawled into bed and made space for someone else, let someone else under the covers for just sleep, not sex. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d done so.

She wasn’t so sure she’d ever in her life done so.

It wasn’t like she’d even thought that Raven would leave. Raven hadn’t made any move to leave, either, and when Anya had seen her yawn, she’d just smiled and told her it was maybe time for bed.

The fact that neither of them dared ask any questions made the whole thing feel oddly natural.

Raven laid on her side of the bed for a while, shifting and wincing while trying to find a comfortable position, until finally she sighed and said: “Can I come over?”

Anya just let out a laugh. “What makes you think you couldn’t?”

Raven just huffed, but rolled over so that she lay right beside Anya, partially on her stomach.

“Doesn’t your stomach hurt?”

Raven shook her head. “I just want to try something out. Can I-?”

Anya didn’t know what she meant until Raven moved so that she lay on top of her right shoulder and a little bit on her chest.

“This doesn’t hurt, does it?”

Anya shook her head. “The shots were on the left side, this is fine.”

Raven rested her head on Anya’s shoulder and sighed, her breath tickling Anya’s neck in a way that sent a shiver down her spine. But Anya didn’t mind, she just shifted a little, moved her arm underneath Raven’s head, and rested her hand on the back of her head.

“Are you comfortable?”

Anya couldn’t lie. “No, your elbow is pressing into my spleen- ow, just move a little- there we go.”

Raven let out a chuckle as she moved her leg over Anya’s, her hand coming to rest carefully on Anya’s stomach.

She’d taken the hoodie off before getting into bed, and Anya noticed the skin of her arm was cold.

“Are you cold?”

Raven shook her head. “I’ll get really hot in a second, I’ll probably have to take off my pants at some point.”

“That’s good,” Anya sighed. “I get cold easily.”

“Well, you won’t be cold tonight,” Raven yawned.

 _No, I definitely won’t,_ Anya thought a few minutes later when Raven had fallen asleep. She was drowsy, but not quite there in terms of sleep – she was content, laying there with someone, and with that someone being Raven.

The brunette felt so small, and yet, she filled the void in Anya’s bed perfectly – it was no longer empty and lonely, there was someone else there, there were breaths that were out of sync with Anya’s own, a second pulse to match the beat of her own heart. The little sighs that left her lips when she shifted a little in her sleep made Anya’s heart flutter, and the calm and serene look on her face was so endearing Anya couldn’t tear her eyes away from her.

She stroked Raven’s hair, gently, and thought. She was glad that Raven had told her, that she had explained her life to her – but she was also now twice as worried, if not thrice, and it made her appreciate the safety and comfort she was able to provide for the brunette in that very moment.

The urge to keep Raven there forever, asleep and calm and away from all harm, was so great Anya felt it as a choking sensation at the base of her throat. She didn’t want to think about the morning, about the fact that Raven would wake with bruises and a black eye and scraped hands and would have to go back to the people who had caused them in the first place. She didn’t want to think about the fact that Raven spent her days with the constant threat of violence looming over her head.

She wanted to protect Raven, and yet, she knew that Raven would never settle for that. And she trusted Raven, despite all she’d seen – she trusted that Raven could take care of herself.

Beneath her fingertips resting on Raven’s neck, Anya could feel Raven’s pulse speed up, and so when Raven’s eyes burst open and a gasp withdrew between her lips, she wasn’t surprised.

“It’s okay, it’s just me,” Anya murmured quietly, eyeing Raven carefully, never stopping the gentle strokes of her hand on Raven’s hair. “You’re safe.”

Raven looked at her for a while before moving her hand, slowly, to Anya’s jaw. She was gentle when she drew Anya in for a sleepy kiss, tentative and soft and slow – and then she laid back again, a smile playing on her lips.

“Forgot where I was, for a moment,” she mumbled, yawning a little.

“Just sleep.”

“You should sleep too…” Raven replied, though she was already half asleep herself. Anya just hummed and moved her other hand from Raven’s neck to run patterns on her cheek, and along her jaw, and wherever she could think to move them. She gently drew a circle along the sensitive skin around her eye, and traced around the band-aid she’d put over the cut on her forehead; she didn’t think, she just traced patterns, and it was those gentle touches that helped Raven fall asleep again.

Not that Anya knew. She didn’t notice the slight flutter of Raven’s eyelashes or the sneaky looks she snuck every few moments, she thought Raven was already fast asleep – and so dared to let slip a soft smile, one which made soft warmth envelop Raven’s entire body in a way she hadn’t even known possible.

But she didn’t say anything. She relaxed, let herself melt into Anya’s touch, and felt Anya’s body melt against her own as she slipped back into a sleep more comfortable than what she’d had in years.

Soon after, Anya laid her head down so that her cheek rested against the top of Raven’s head, and fell asleep, feeling more peaceful than she had ever felt in her life.

 

* * *

 

Raven woke in the morning before Anya did. She laid there, tangled in sheets and Anya’s arms, and for a long while, did nothing.

She felt warm and happy. She wanted to savor it.

The morning sun crept through the window, warm and golden, and a ray ran over Anya’s body in a way that made her glow. Her skin looked golden, and her hair glimmered in a thousand shades of bronze and copper, and her lips looked so red and enticing that Raven had a hard time resisting them.

She didn’t want to wake Anya; she didn’t want to break whatever spell had fallen over the bedroom.

Half an hour later, Raven heard her phone buzz.

It wasn’t her day, but she knew a message this early in the day could only mean one thing. With a sigh, she went to disentangle herself from Anya’s arms – but the woman grumbled in her sleep, tightening her arms around Raven in a way that surprised her. In her surprise, Raven let out a groan of pain when Anya’s arm pressed on a particularly sore bruise, and before she knew it, Anya was wide awake and sitting up, staring at Raven, eyes wide with shock.

“Did I hurt you?”

Raven shook her head. “No, you surprised me, I’m fine-“

Anya frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Okay, maybe it hurt a little, but it’s fine. Seriously.”

“Why’re you up? It’s barely seven.”

“My phone,” Raven groaned, turning over and reaching for her phone on the floor, “It buzzed.”

Anya laid back down and watched as Raven dialled some number.

“Hey, Niylah,” Raven sighed. “Why’d you need to talk?”

Anya saw a shadow cross over Raven’s face as she listened to whoever was on the other end.

“Uh-huh…so he’s fine? Oh, he’s crying after me- yeah, okay, I’ll be by in an hour or so. Yeah. Bye.”

She set the phone down with a deep sigh, and Anya knew what she was going to say before she did.

“I have to go.”

“Aden?”

Raven nodded. “I’m sorry-“

“No, don’t be. Just…grab something to eat, first,” Anya said.

“I can’t-“

But Anya wasn’t having any of it. “If you’re willing to give someone else your own money and food, you’re damn well going to be willing to receive some of mine. Seriously.”

She was maybe a little cranky because her arm ached, and besides, she didn’t want to argue with Raven about basic health matters. She was going to eat, and that was that.

Raven just stared at Anya for a long time before cracking a smile. “Did you know you snore?”

“I don’t snore.”

“No, you don’t, but you do cuddle pretty tight,” Raven smirked, standing up and groaning at the stretch on her stomach.

“Not like you had any problem with it,” Anya muttered, her face reddening a little.

Raven just chuckled.

Her eye looked blacker this morning, but Anya had known to expect it. Still, seeing one half of Raven’s face so bruised and hurt bothered her, and she had trouble looking at her without wanting to cringe.

“My face will be fine,” Raven told her as Anya searched her cupboards for something to eat, “In a week or so, it’ll be just as pretty as before.”

Anya just rolled her eyes and shoved a box of cereal in her hands. “I’ll get you a bowl. Coffee?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these dumb gay babies i love my dumb gay babies
> 
> they slept together and ngl i died a little writing it because it's just so soft
> 
> also i know this is angst-heavy but you all knew what you signed up for when you started this so


	8. a solitary voice to speak out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah my dumb gay babies i missed them
> 
> this fic is the perfect mix of angst and fluff and i love writing it and i also know you enjoy reading it so it's a win-win situation for us both, my pal

“Anya, you’re confusing me.”

Anya looked up from her desk. “What?”

“I said you’re confusing me,” Lexa repeated, moving her chair over to Anya’s side of the desk. “You were happy, then you were mopey and pissy, and now you’re happy again? What is going on?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m happy-“

“Well, happier than normal,” Lexa amended. “Is there something going on?”

Anya shrugged. “No, not really – why?”

“You’ve been glancing at your phone more than normal, and you look…excited?”

“So?”

Lexa groaned. “Are you going to make me spell it out for you?”

Anya just smirked. It was one of the few things she’d picked up from Raven. “Maybe.”

“Are you dating someone?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think I’d know,” Anya chuckled. “If I were dating someone, I mean.”

“Then what’s going on with you? I’m your friend, I want to know-“

“Nothing, really.”

That was a lie. A lot was going on. But Anya couldn’t tell Lexa – she couldn’t tell anyone, not even her best friend, about Raven, about the low-life gangbanger criminal that she’d somehow ended up in a relationship with.

Well, maybe not a relationship. But something close to one. Raven wasn’t her girlfriend, but she was…someone.

Raven was someone who called her down to the riverbank at dawn to fuck while the sun rose golden over the horizon.

Raven was someone who sometimes just popped in to look at her curiously as Anya watched TV, and to make fun of her taste in TV shows.

Raven was someone who would, often, knock at her window at night, so that Anya could let her in and into her bed.

They were sleeping together often. After that first night, it had become so easy; Raven would call, tell her that she was coming, and Anya would leave her window slightly open before going to bed. When Raven did come, she would close the window, get out of her clothes, and crawl into the space beside Anya, usually without another word. She would rest her head in the crook of Anya’s neck and place her hand on Anya’s stomach, and would fall asleep almost instantly.

Her steady breaths had become what lulled Anya to sleep.

Now, she could no longer sleep as soundly when she was alone.

She had also started slipping protein bars and snack packs into Raven’s pockets and bags when she wasn’t looking. She knew Raven knew what she was doing, but the brunette did nothing to make her stop, hadn’t told her to stop, and Anya was now certain that Raven was also eating them. It was just a hunch, but the slight change in her appearance, the disappearance of the hollowness in her eyes and the less-bony feel of her ribs told Anya that perhaps her efforts had had some effect.

Raven still sometimes showed up with cuts and burns and bruises on her skin, but now, though she did glare and grumble about it, she let Anya disinfect and bandage them up. She sat still and let Anya clean up the cuts on her chin and shoulders from what Anya could only guess were from being shoved into walls or to the ground, and she barely let out a sound when Anya spread some ointment onto a burn and bandaged it up – she never outright refused Anya’s care, and Anya was content with that.

Usually, afterwards, Raven would kiss her as a thanks.

“Anya? Hey, Anya.”

“What?”

“You just zoned out.”

“Oh.”

“You’re lying to me,” Lexa frowned. “There is someone.”

“I never said there wasn’t someone. I just said that I’m not dating anyone.”

“So there _is_ someone?”

Anya shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Oh my god, please, Anya, tell me _something_.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Yet.”

“It’s _nothing._ ”

“You’re boring.”

“I am.”

And then Lexa’s phone rang, and she was drawn back to work, letting Anya out of the uncomfortable discussion she’d slipped into.

She wasn’t ready to talk about Raven, not with anyone.

When the time was right, she’d talk about her to Lexa. But now was not the time.

That day, Anya went home as usual, stopping by at the supermarket for just a few essentials – milk, cookies, bananas, bread, just things that popped into her head while she was there. Without even thinking, she picked up a bunch of protein bars and the like, not even intending to eat them herself – they were for Raven, she knew that, and it felt perfectly normal, too.

On her way home, she heard a warning about a blizzard over the radio, and so stopped by at another store to buy a spare blanket – she’d shoved her blanket at Raven some weeks earlier, after Raven had shown up looking particularly cold and complaining about the heating at their apartment being off, and hadn't gotten around to buying a new one just yet.

Large snowflakes were already floating down when she reached her house, and for a moment, Anya stood under the streetlight, watching as they fell down to the ground, like an endless rain-storm of pure white feathers. Her breath puffed up in front of her, like white smoke, and the air was almost bitingly cold – though she really didn’t stand so long outside, the tip of her nose was ice cold by the time she got into her house.

As the evening went by, the wind outside picked up, and Anya found herself wondering whether Raven was inside and warm.

She dearly hoped she was. The weather outside was so awful that nobody should’ve been out, let alone Raven, who refused to wear a hat or a scarf, or even a proper jacket.

Of course, Anya suspected that she didn’t own any of those things, and knew that offering to buy them for Raven would be too much. There was no way she’d accept, she’d rather stick her ice-cold hands in her pockets than swallow her pride and accept charity from Anya.

She’d been gone for a few weeks. This time, however, Anya wasn’t too worried – Raven had told her, had promised her she’d been fine, and though Anya didn’t actually know where she’d gone, she trusted her word.

She’d said she’d be back in two weeks.

It had now been two weeks and two days. But Anya wasn’t very worried.

Maybe a tiny bit, but not much.

The electricity went out around seven. Anya didn’t mind – she lit some candles here and there and sat on the couch, curled up in her new blanket, drinking tea and solving crossword puzzles by the candlelight. It was quiet except for the howling of the wind outside, and the mood in the apartment was serenely comfortable.

When she went to bed, she blew out all the candles except one, which she used to guide herself through the dark apartment to her bedroom. Once she’d blown that one out as well, everything fell dark, and she almost fell asleep immediately.

But she didn’t. The wind howled outside, and the snow billowed and flew by the window, and, though she tried her best not to, Anya found herself worrying about Raven.

And then, of course, the doorbell rang.

“Speak of the devil,” Anya muttered, throwing the covers off of herself and lighting the candle again. The doorbell rang, again, and Anya had half the mind to yell that she was coming – but she just hurried her steps, and opened the door just when Raven was about to ring the doorbell the third time.

“Come in,” Anya sighed, not even surprised to find Raven on her doorstep. “It’s freezing out.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

Raven looked like a walking icicle. Her hair was white with snow, her whole body was covered in it, and she almost looked blue from how cold she was. As Anya had suspected, she was only wearing her red bomber jacket, no gloves, no scarf, no hat – barely anything, and definitely not enough to cope with the storm outside.

Anya sighed and brushed some snow off of Raven’s cold cheek. “Take a hot shower. I’ll bring you some dry clothes.”

Raven looked at her for a moment, shivering as she stood, and then turned on her heel to hurry towards the bathroom.

Anya wandered over to her closet and picked out what she figured were the warmest clothes, and upon returning to her bedroom, found it empty. She heard the shower going on, and smiled a little to herself as she went in to the bathroom and placed the clothes on the counter. After lighting a bunch of candles wherever she could, she turned to look at Raven, who was looking at her from the shower with an odd expression on her face. She was standing under the running water, shoulders hunched, still shivering, arms tightly crossed across her chest, but what confused Anya most was the look on her face. She simply couldn’t pinpoint why her eyes looked so soft, and so dark in that moment.

“I’ll put your clothes up to dry.”

She hung the clothes up, one by one, and all the while, Raven didn’t say a word. Anya knew she was watching her, could feel her eyes on the back of her head, but didn’t do anything to show Raven that she knew.

When she was done, she went to leave, but was stopped when Raven cracked the shower door open.

“Get in,” she said, her tone of voice quiet and yet demanding.

Anya looked at Raven for a brief moment before shrugging and shedding all of her clothes. So what if she’d showered that morning – Raven’s eyes drew her in, and, as she stepped into the shower and under the hot water, her body melded into her own in a way that made her forget that anything else even existed.

It was Raven who pushed Anya against the cold tile wall. It was Raven whose mouth claimed Anya’s with demand, with fiery passion, with unexplainable need – it was Raven who put her hands on Anya’s waist and on her neck and kissed her, so deeply and so slowly that Anya didn’t even know what to think.

Raven hadn’t ever pinned her down. Raven hadn’t ever grabbed her like she was doing now, Raven hadn’t ever even tried to – and now that she was doing it, now that she was taking control, Anya found herself giving it up, more than willingly.

Her skin felt cold, even under the hot water, and Anya was more than glad to step out from under the shower to make sure Raven got all the heat she needed. Even her lips felt cold, so cold against Anya’s own – to Raven, it must have felt as though Anya held all the heat, and it was partly because of it that Raven pushed in so close, held her so close, simply to feel that warmth again.

“Just get closer,” she growled, her hand fisting Anya’s hair and pulling her back to her, “Please-“

Anya paused for a brief second, surprised by the break in Raven’s voice – and was even more surprised by what she saw. Even though Raven’s face was wet from the water, dripping from the water, Anya could tell that she was crying. It didn’t matter that Raven turned her eyes away, turned around completely to hide herself – Anya had seen it, and now, suddenly perplexed, did the only thing she could think of doing. She reached out, wrapped her arms around Raven, and pulled her closer.

She could feel Raven trembling in her arms. She could feel the sobs that tried to wreck their way through her throat, she could feel her tense up and force them back down again – she didn’t hear a sound, not a single sob or whimper, but she could feel them in Raven’s body, and could feel the effort the brunette put into making sure she wasn’t heard.

“Hey,” Anya finally murmured, her lips grazing Raven’s ear. “Hey, it’s…it’s okay.”

Raven took a deep breath and leaned her head against Anya’s shoulder. “No, it’s not.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

There was hesitation in Raven’s voice she replied. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s nothing,” Raven sniffled.

“Doesn’t sound like nothing.”

Anya stood there, unsure of what to do, and waited for Raven to say something. The water ran over them, the steady stream of heat keeping the two of them close, but for an agonizingly long while, Raven said nothing at all.

“I’m not fucking sad,” Raven finally whimpered, turning around to try and explain herself. “I swear, I’m not, I’m fucking happy- I was happy to see you, and I don’t fucking know why I’m crying, it’s so stupid-“

She was overcome by a sob, and Anya let out a sigh as she pulled Raven closer. “You missed me?”

Raven nodded but said nothing, just sniffled and hid her face against Anya’s shoulder. “It’s stupid,” she muttered after a while. “Every fucking time. You must think I’m a crybaby-“

“I don’t.”

“It’s not like you’re crying every time I’m around,” Raven muttered.

“I don’t have that many reasons to cry,” Anya hummed. “You seem like you do. And you don’t cry every time-”

Raven just let out a shaky sigh. “I hate crying.”

“I do too.”

Raven felt tense. She was tense, Anya knew that, and Anya knew that she was feeling insecure and god knows what else – but she’d never been good with words.

And yet, she wanted to show that she cared.

And so she pulled her arms away, turned Raven around to face away from her, reached out for the shampoo, and, carefully as she could, undid the braid Raven’s hair had been in.

Raven didn’t look at her. She’d realized what Anya was doing, but, as Anya’s hands gently unravelled the braid and began massaging the shampoo into her hair, she relaxed. She leaned a little into Anya without even realizing it, and Anya pushed her back, muttering that she needed enough space to properly do what she was doing.

When Anya got a little bit of shampoo in Raven’s eyes, all Raven did was let out a yelp and wipe at them, quickly washing the stinging sense out and shooting Anya a quick glare.

“Are you going to turn around and let me condition your hair too?”

Raven frowned. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because you stink.”

“I don’t stink,” Raven muttered, turning around to allow Anya to do as she pleased. “I had a shower yesterday morning.”

Anya just smiled to herself and focused on conditioning Raven’s hair. There were some tangles here and there, and she undid them, the mundane task allowing her mind to empty for the short period that it took. When she was done, she set the showerhead back up, and found herself with no words to say to Raven.

But Raven, having been waiting for Anya to be done, turned around, quicker than Anya had expected, and kissed her.

Not roughly. Not with demand. She didn’t grab Anya, didn’t shove her into a wall – she slid her arm around Anya’s waist and drew her in, gently, and her lips on Anya’s own were equally as gentle; they were soft, they were warm, and they were more careful than what Anya had ever felt from Raven in the time that she’d known her.

It was a kiss entirely different from the innumerable amounts of kisses that they’d exchanged.

When Raven drew away, she paused just a few inches from Anya’s face, opening her eyes to look into Anya’s with an expression that made Anya’s heart leap to her throat.

“Thank you,” Raven whispered, her lips curling into a slight smile. “For everything.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Anya replied, smiling a little herself. It felt odd, smiling, seeing Raven smile, holding her so gently and being so awake – embraces had become a staple of their nights, of the times when one or both of them were asleep. Never had they been this gentle with one another and been fully awake, and fully aware of what they were doing.

“We should get out of the shower.”

“We should.”

Anya grabbed her own towel and clothes and headed into the bedroom, where she got dressed as fast as she could. It was getting cold in her apartment, thanks to the fact that the heating was electric and the electricity was off, and so she put on another pair of socks – just in case.

“I blew out the candles in the bathroom,” Raven said as she walked in. “Just in case.”

Anya glanced at her and almost stumbled at the sight. Raven was wearing her sweatpants and her t-shirt, and her hoodie, and she looked absolutely adorable. Her wet hair was frizzy and messy, and she looked so comfortable and so warm that Anya almost went over and kissed her right there and then.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Anya shrugged. “You look tiny.”

“That’s ‘cause your clothes are huge.”

“They’re not huge.”

“They are for me.”

“That’s because you’re tiny,” Anya smirked, causing Raven’s eyes to widen.

“Hey! That’s _my_ thing!”

“Really? Didn’t know only you could smirk.”

“I do it way better than you do,” Raven muttered.

“So, are you still cold?”

“No.”

“Are you hungry?”

Raven hesitated, which Anya took as a yes.

“I can’t cook very well,” Anya stated as she walked past Raven into the kitchen. “But it’ll be edible.”

Anya wasn’t so sure what had changed. But something clearly had. While she made a quick noodle wok on the stove, Raven sat on the counter, watching her quietly and swinging her legs. When they ate dinner, Raven tried to use chopsticks like Anya was, but finally gave up and went to get a fork.

When they were done eating, Raven took Anya’s plate, and without saying a word, did the dishes. Anya had come to stand by her, and frowned a little in confusion when Raven handed her a wet plate.

Anya stared at it in confusion for a second before Raven smirked and said:

“You gonna dry it or what?”

Anya had no idea how they’d become so domestic so fast.

And then, when Raven was done doing the dishes, she surprised Anya with a kiss, as soft as the last, with a promise of something Anya hadn’t even thought would be possible, not with her. It was comfort, it was warmth, it was closer to love than anything that Raven had done for Anya – and it made Anya’s stomach do a thousand flips.

Ten minutes later, they were still there, kissing in the candlelit kitchen. Raven’s hand was resting on Anya’s chest, fingers curled around the collar of her shirt ever-so-slightly – her other hand was on Anya’s hip, just firm enough to keep her grounded as she lost herself in the soft kisses that she couldn’t stop giving. Anya was leaning on the counter, one of her hands on the small of Raven’s back, the other resting on her jaw, her thumb just gently stroking her cheek every now and then. She couldn’t get enough of Raven, couldn’t get enough of the soft and comfortable head space she’d fallen into – all she could sense was Raven, her body against her own, her hand on her hip and on her chest, her lips against her own – and that was enough.

They were interrupted by a yawn from Raven’s part, and Anya couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight.

“You should sleep,” she murmured, pushing a strand of hair behind Raven’s ear.

“We should,” Raven corrected her. She pulled away, and took Anya’s hand, starting to half drag, half lead her to the bedroom.

She’d been so annoying and rude when they’d first met. She’d been so dislikeable, so irritating, so infuriating – and now they were here.

In bed, cuddling, Raven’s leg resting over Anya’s, Raven’s hand resting atop her chest, feeling more at home than anything she’d ever known.

 

* * *

 

Anya woke in the morning to find Raven still there. She laid in front of her, facing her, so close Anya could feel her breaths on her neck – they were hot and steady, and so quiet, and yet so real it only felt more surreal. It was dark outside, the wind had slowed down, and it didn’t quite seem like a blizzard anymore.

It was cold on the outside of the covers. Anya’s face was cold, her nose felt like ice, but everything else felt toasty warm, comfortable – Raven’s legs were tangled with her own, and Raven’s hand on her neck, limp and gentle, felt hot against the cool skin.

It was quiet and serene. Anya hadn’t felt such tranquility in a long time, hadn’t felt so relaxed and comfortable to just be laying in her bed with someone sleeping in it – in fact, she wasn’t so sure she’d ever felt like this.

Usually, Raven was gone by the time she woke in the morning. Anya knew it was because of Aden, or because of her work – she didn’t mind, she understood the reasons why, and was happy to have Raven for the nights that she came.

But now, having her in her bed, and being awake, Anya realized that she was going to miss it. She just knew that each morning that she woke to find Raven gone would hurt, if only a little, it didn’t matter – it would hurt.

She didn’t want that moment to end, ever.

After some time, her attentions were drawn by the brunette in front of her. She slept on her side, with her face hidden behind her fist, slightly uncurled; her other hand rested on Anya’s neck, and she was as close as she could be to her without fully laying on top of her. Every now and then, her leg would twitch, or she’d sigh in her sleep, but otherwise she was so calm and so peaceful that Anya found herself unable to tear her eyes off of her.

She dozed off for an hour and woke up again to find Raven still in the same position. It was well past nine in the morning, and though Anya had no work, she found herself getting a little restless and bored.

And so, quietly as she could, she tried to get up.

The moment she moved, however, Raven’s eyes burst open, and she let out a little yelp as she tried to scramble up, eyes wide from surprise. Anya froze in place, eyeing the brunette with mixed feelings of confusion and concern. It took a while for Raven’s eyes to focus, and when she realized where she was, she relaxed visibly.

“Oh, it’s just you,” she mumbled, falling back onto the bed. “What are you doing?”

Anya shrugged. “Getting up.”

Raven yawned widely and turned a little, pulling the pillow closer to her. “Don’t go.”

“I’m thirsty.”

“But it’ll get cold.”

“I’ll be back.”

When Anya did come back, she found Raven laying on the bed, watching her.

“You’re not going to get up?”

Raven shook her head. “You promised you’d be back.”

“I-“ Anya let out a laugh. “Fine.”

She crawled back into bed, back under the comforting warmth of the covers.

Raven glanced at Anya for a brief moment, while the two of them were laying side by side. “Are your ribs okay?”

Anya had, in truth, forgotten all about her ribs. “They’re- it’s been seven weeks. It’s fine.”

Anya saw Raven nod, and then felt her hand on her arm, pulling her closer.

“Lay on top of me,” Raven muttered.

“Why?”

“I want to know if it feels as nice as laying on top of you.”

Anya hadn’t ever laid on top of someone. She wasn’t particularly heavy, but she was tall, and had always been taller than her partners – she’d always felt clumsy about it, and hadn’t ever even thought that she could lay on top of someone, she’d always figured she was too big for that.

But when she climbed on top of Raven, she found herself melting into her body, into the shape of her laying on the bed – it didn’t matter that she was taller, she only had to shuffle a little bit downward, and, when she laid her head down and heard Raven’s heart beating in her chest, she realized she’d been missing out on something amazing.

It was a long while before she dared to break the silence that had fallen over them.

“Did your trip go well?”

“Hmm?”

“Wherever you went, for the past two weeks.”

“Oh. Yeah, it was fine.”

“You’re not going to tell me what it was, are you?”

“You’re a cop. I did something really illegal. I don’t want to involve you in a crime, since keeping it a secret would be one, too.”

“Did you murder someone?”

Raven let out a laugh. “No.”

Anya sighed. “Fair enough.”

Raven let out a long breath. Anya felt the fall of her chest, and then it’s rise again, and for a long while, was completely mesmerized by the feeling of being so close to Raven – she’d held Raven, many a time, but she hadn’t ever _been_ held, not like this, not by anyone for that matter.

She hadn’t ever had anyone’s fingers drawing patterns on her back; she hadn’t ever known something so simple could feel so amazing.

She hadn’t ever had someone’s cheek resting on the top of her head, she hadn’t ever had someone play with the baby hairs on the nape of her neck – she hadn’t even known she could have any of those things.

And Raven just did them, without saying a word, without even indicating any of it was anything out of the ordinary.

Not that she thought much of it, either. She loved feeling the comforting weight of Anya’s body on top of her own, it made her breath hitch in her throat but in the best of ways – she loved the feeling of Anya’s breaths on her skin, of Anya’s hand on her stomach, of the relaxed sighs that left Anya’s lips when she started drawing patterns on her skin.

She’d just slipped into a comfortable headspace, hadn’t even thought of it, and then suddenly realized she was drawing patterns on Anya’s skin. She was just tracing her back, feeling the soft skin under her fingertips, not thinking of where she was taking her fingers, just wanting to feel all of Anya, and enjoying the slight shifts and moan-like sighs that Anya let out every now and then.

The hairs on the back of Anya’s neck were incredibly soft, and Raven found herself twirling them in between her fingers, marvelling at how soft and light the hairs were. Anya’s hair was a mystery to her anyway – it was blonde in places, darker in others, messy and yet so unique, and she loved it.

“You do know,” Anya sighed, her voice quiet. “That it’s almost ten in the morning, right?”

Raven nodded slowly. “I do.”

“And you don’t have to leave?”

“No, unless you want me to.”

Anya nodded and slid her hand under Raven’s shirt to rest on the bare skin of her stomach.

“I don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they're so soft and dumb and gay and i love them so much
> 
> anya feeling vulnerable? anya feeling insecure? raven not even knowing but comforting anya? i love it
> 
> also kissing in a candlelit kitchen


	9. you're not the easiest person

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so this is long as fuck
> 
> and an emotional journey
> 
> there's sin
> 
> enjoy

Anya’s motivation to finish the Azgeda case once and for all had multiplied after she’d heard Raven’s story. She just had to get it over with, had to get Nia out of Raven's life, in one way or another - she just had to.

When she wasn’t with Raven, she was working feverishly, going over old reports, trying to find anything at all that could link Nia to the gang and to all the horrendous things they did.

It wasn’t enough that they arrest one or two people. They had to clean them all out, all at once.

What Raven had said about the salaries had given her some hope. Accusations of what was essentially modern slavery would not be easily overcome, and, if Anya got enough proof, Nia and her group were sure to spend the rest of their lives in prison. But finding proof was near impossible – technically speaking, half of the gang members didn’t even exist, and those that hadn’t been booked for crimes had no identification; for all they knew, they could’ve been living under false names. There was no work record, no official company that the gang owned; there were autoshops and pool halls and massage facilities, all perfect for money laundering, but though the police had good hints on all of them, they had no visible and tangible proof.

And proof was what they needed.

Anya could tell that Lexa was getting worried. When she came to work at seven, Anya was already there, and when she left work at five, Anya was still there. She wasn’t even sure she was sleeping enough.

“Do you even go home, at all?”

Anya didn’t glance up from the papers. “I do.”

“You don’t seem like you do.”

“I come here at half past six, I leave at seven or eight.”

“You sometimes don’t even stop for lunch.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Anya-“

“Lex, I just…I want to get this case moving. I want to get rid of them, I’m so close but so far and-“

“I get it, but you have to rest,” Lexa insisted. “Even a quick nap, and a snack – please? For me?”

Anya set down her pen and sighed as she looked at Lexa. “Do I really look that tired?”

Lexa frowned. “No, you don’t, but-“

“See?”

“But,” Lexa insisted, “I’m going to start shoving the food in your face if you don’t eat it voluntarily.”

Anya let out a laugh. “I’d like to see you try.”

She didn’t notice that Lexa was peeling a banana and walking over, not until suddenly there was a hard hand on her shoulder and a banana in front of her face.

“Lexa, no-!”

“Eat it, Anya-“

“Lexa, this is idiotic and you’re going to give all the guys a lot of fun to laugh about-“

“Then take the banana and eat it voluntarily,” Lexa smirked.

Anya snatched the banana away and glared at Lexa. “You’re embarrassing, sometimes.”

“Am not.”

“You are.”

“Just eat it. Please? I love you-“

“Fi-ine, I’ll eat it. But please let me focus now?”

Her moment of peace didn’t last very long. Not ten minutes later, Anya heard a commotion at the door, and raised her eyes to see none other than Raven being dragged in.

She just shook her head and stood up even before she was told to go.

The instant they were in an interview room, however, Raven’s façade seemed to fall. She wasn’t angry anymore, just playful and teasing, and Anya couldn’t help but roll her eyes when she realized Raven had gotten herself caught just to see her.

“I know this room’s camera is broken,” Raven smirked, leaning casually against the table. “I broke it myself.”

“How?”

“You know I’m good with a computer,” Raven shrugged.

“Okay, Raven, what gives? Why’d you get arrested this time?”

Raven offered her a faint smile. “Ran out of small change. Can I come over later today?”

“You got yourself arrested just to ask if you could come over?”

Raven shrugged again. “You’ve been working a lot, lately.”

“You’re not the first one to say that today,” Anya muttered.

“Well, it’s true.”

“We’ll talk back at my place.”

“What time?”

Anya didn’t know what time she’d be home, and so, after a brief moment of hesitation, tossed Raven her keys. “I’m trusting you,” she told Raven, who pocketed the keys in her bra. “I better not come home to find my TV missing.”

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t steal something that obvious.”

“Right, now, what were you arrested for again?”

“Drunken misdemeanour,” Raven told her. “So just…book me till I sober up and give me a fine?”

“You’re starting to know these better than I do,” Anya muttered. “But you better look drunk, then.”

“What makes you think I’m not drunk?”

Anya looked at Raven and shrugged. “Hard to tell.”

She did look a little less composed than usual.

“Well, I did pass the drunk-test, so-“

“It’s not a drunk-test-“

“You know what I mean.”

When Anya went over to grab Raven’s arm so that they’d look more credible, Raven let out a little chuckle, and quietly murmured: “Can’t wait to get rough with me, can you?”

This time, however, Anya replied with the same teasing tone.

“Just wait till I get home, Raven.”

The shiver that ran down Raven’s spine was more than enough to make Anya have to suppress a grin as she escorted Raven out and down the hall to the holding cells.

Four hours later, Raven was let go, and Anya couldn’t help but watch her as she went. She did do it discreetly, pretending she was staring at a poster, but still, all she really was looking at was Raven’s disappearing form.

She mostly stared at her ass, and tried to not think about all the things that she wanted to do to her once she got home.

The knowledge that Raven was in her house, waiting for her, made Anya finish up quicker with work than usual. When the clock struck five, she was out before Lexa had even time to ask where she was going.

She’d been stressing all week, and, well – Raven was the way she de-stressed, nowadays.

And so within minutes of getting home, Anya was sat on her couch with Raven straddling her lap, topless and breathless from being kissed so hard she almost saw stars.

“Someone’s hungry,” Raven murmured as she grinded her hips in Anya’s lap, “And needy.”

Anya just grumbled and pulled Raven closer, her hands digging into the soft skin of Raven’s waist as she bit into Raven’s lip, drawing an excited moan from the brunette’s throat. Her hands roamed Raven’s body, ran over exposed skin and skirted over the waistline of her jeans, groped at her ass and her breasts, and all the while Raven moved against her body, grabbed at her hair and neck and kissed her with almost desperate need that left both of them breathless.

“Let’s go to the bedroom,” Raven breathed as she kissed Anya’s neck, her fingers fumbling with the buckle of her belt. “I want you on top of me, and that purple toy _in_ me-“

Anya moaned at just the thought. “I’ll do that,” she murmured, wrapping her hand around Raven’s neck and pulling her lips back to her. “But first, I want you to do me.”

“Do you?” Raven smirked.

Anya rolled her eyes and shuffled backwards on the couch, so that she was able to pull off her pants. “You know what I mean,” she muttered. “And you taunted me at the station, so, really, you owe me-“

“And how about you? I had to watch you playing with a pencil in your mouth,” Raven retorted as she moved to kneel between Anya’s legs. “I could see you, from the holding cell. And you look hot in your uniform.”

“You can’t seem to wait to get me out of my uniform,” Anya pointed out. “But I don’t want to talk.”

Raven smirked but said nothing – she was laying on her stomach now, her legs hung off of the couch, and one of her arms was wrapped around Anya’s thigh. Her hand rested on the soft fabric of Anya’s underwear, her thumb grazing the wet line where her arousal had pushed through, her eyes fixed on the sight as though she were hypnotized – which, in truth, she was, a little bit.

“Raven…”

“Shh, be patient,” Raven murmured, pressing a kiss to Anya’s inner thigh. “There’s no rush, is there?”

There was a teasing tone in her voice, and Anya sighed as she laid back. Raven kept kissing her inner thighs, slowly, as she teased her over the thin fabric of her underwear – it seemed she was intent on making the fabric soaked before removing it, and, after some time, she did succeed.

She also succeeded in making Anya into what could only be described as a desperate mess. She tried to keep herself from begging, she didn’t like the thought of begging for anything from Raven – she liked it when it was the opposite, when it was Raven begging her, but in the end, she couldn’t help herself. Raven’s fingers were so taunting, almost there but not quite, and they kept nearing the places she wanted them most; but they weren’t enough, she needed more, wanted more, and so, finally, she caved.

“Raven, please-“

Raven had been waiting for that. It was those words, the quiet moan accompanied by a plea, that finally got her to pull Anya’s panties off and toss them aside.

“You lasted longer than I expected,” she murmured, throwing a smirk in Anya’s direction – but Anya wasn’t looking, her head was thrown back, one hand grasping her own breast in a way that made Raven forget her words entirely.

She half considered climbing up and catching Anya’s nipple between her lips.

But she figured, after a brief moment of being torn between the two options before her, that Anya would more or less kill her if she didn’t satisfy her after having taunted her like so.

She shifted a little, pushed Anya’s other leg a little wider, and dipped her head down so that her mouth could meet with the wetness that had covered the entirety of Anya’s sex. There was something different about this, something slower and more calm – there was no urgency, Anya’s hand wasn’t on the back of her head, Anya wasn’t telling her what to do at all; Anya was just laying back, clearly a little tense, but she was giving Raven free reign to do what she pleased.

By now, she knew what made Anya tick. Her tongue knew it’s way around her, knew how to draw moans from her, how to taunt her – she knew, and used that knowledge to her advantage. She closed her eyes and focused entirely on the feeling, on the noises she heard, on the slight movement of Anya’s hips as she kept going, licking, sucking, tasting her arousal and letting it fill her mouth in a way that left her mind blank.

She lost herself in the sensation and almost didn’t notice Anya approaching a climax, not until she felt Anya’s hand in her hair, gripping tightly on her ponytail, the touch a kind of plea for Raven to keep doing whatever she was doing, to not pull away, to finish what she’d started. She kept going, her head nodding a little as she kept her pace, following Anya wherever she moved, not allowing her a break from the pleasure, not until she came – and even afterwards, she remained, she kept licking, listening to Anya’s breaths become moans as she slowly realized she had no intentions of stopping.

“Oh my god,” Anya groaned, arching her back and grabbing the side of the couch in an attempt to ground herself, “Raven, I-“

Raven just hummed and pushed two fingers inside of her, curling them and sucking on her clit at the same time, so that Anya’s words were overcome by a moaning whimper; she fell back onto the couch, her grip of Raven’s hair loosening, her hand falling to rest by Raven’s head, but she was somewhere else entirely. She was watching Raven, her lips parted and ragged breaths passing in between them, she was watching Raven lick her and suck on her clit, she was feeling the sensation multiply with each movement that Raven’s mouth did – and the fact that her eyes were closed, that she was so focused on Anya’s pleasure, it made Anya’s stomach do flips like she’d never felt them before.

Raven hadn’t ever been so…intimate, not with her. She’d eaten her out before, she’d fucked her with her fingers before, but before there’d been a wall of sorts – a restraint, something held back behind the rough grabs and mindless fucking, something which was now gone.

She’d have never thought she’d be surrendering to Raven’s mouth like what she was doing now.

Not that she was doing much thinking, not in that instant. She wasn’t used to losing control like this, she hadn’t ever let herself slip, but she wasn’t scared – somehow, despite all odds, she trusted Raven.

When she came a second time, the pleasure that washed over her was both intense and calm – it wasn’t like the first, it wasn’t as intense, but Raven still kept going, and Anya found herself unable to tell her to stop. She’d gotten oddly used to the intensity, and, after the initial intensity of the second orgasm, she almost felt nothing at all.

But that sensation only lasted a few minutes, soon enough she was approaching her third, and that was when she truly did feel a little bit of fear – it felt so intense her head felt as though it were drowning in pleasure, she could no longer contain any of her moans or whimpers, she didn’t care about keeping composed at all; there was a sheen of sweat on her skin, her lips felt swollen and deprived of any contact, in a split second Anya felt the overwhelming desire to have Raven’s mouth on hers again – but that passed, she threw her head back and suddenly all of the pleasure came at her, all at once.

Raven watched as Anya’s back arched and toes curled as the third orgasm washed over her. She hadn’t meant to keep going, but she had found herself unable to stop, and then suddenly Anya was climaxing again and Raven finally withdrew – she watched Anya come, watched the rise and fall of her chest as she reeled from the intensity of her pleasure, and saw the limp way her hand fell to rest against her stomach when she finally settled down.

A gentle tug of Anya’s hand on her neck was all that Raven needed to climb up, over her, to meet her lips with her own; Anya was so different, she was so relaxed and the smile on her face was like nothing Raven had ever seen, and she couldn’t stop laughing, gently – it was so bizarre, seeing her cheeks so pink and her hair so mussed and Raven, in all her determination to not lose herself in the moment, did just that. She leaned back down and kissed Anya again, and she laughed when Anya did, she returned her smile and for a long while, forgot anything else existed.

“I can’t think properly,” Anya finally hummed, her hand resting on Raven’s jaw.

“Did I break you?” Raven chuckled. “Because it sure looks like I did.”

Anya let out a laugh and shrugged. “You’re an idiot.”

“What did I do now?”

“Nothing…nothing at all.”

It was a long while before either of them said anything. Anya just laid there, feeling as though her mind had been run over by a truck of pleasure, and Raven – Raven laid on Anya’s chest, listening to her heartbeat, pretending like the sphere of her world had been reduced to the circumference of Anya’s arms, and that anything beyond them had ceased to exist.

The aching cigarette burn on her arm did not exist, the throbbing headache of her slight hangover did not exist – all that existed was the feeling of Anya’s soft skin, so hot beneath her touch, and the pleasure and comfort that being so close to Anya gave her.

She didn’t even remember that she was wet, she didn’t remember that she hadn’t been touched at all – but when Anya shifted a little and moved her thigh between Raven’s legs, the surprised moan that left her lips brought her still-present arousal to both their attention.

“You wanted that purple toy, didn’t you-“ Anya began. She didn’t feel that energetic, not now, but she wasn’t about to deny Raven pleasure when she’d been given so much – but Raven shook her head, told her to wait, and disappeared from the living room altogether.

Anya closed her eyes and laid back, and so was surprised when she felt the harness of her strapon being slid onto her.

“What are you-“

“Just shush,” Raven said, pushing Anya back onto the couch. “You’re tired.”

“What are you doing?” Anya insisted, sitting up, causing Raven’s hand to slip on a clasp.

“I want to ride you,” Raven said, simply. “So lie back.”

But Anya didn’t do that. She stood up, settled the harness on herself better, Raven had put the clasp into the wrong place and put some too tight, but it didn't take her long to correct it.

“You really want to ride this one?” she asked as she sat down, eyeing the purple dildo – it was her biggest one, thick _and_ long, and she had only toyed with it in Raven. She hadn’t actually fucked her with it, not yet, and she wasn’t so sure whether it’d fit.

Raven placed her hands on Anya’s shoulders and gave her a smirk. “You’re underestimating me.”

Anya couldn’t help but watch as she lowered herself onto the toy – she couldn’t help putting her hands on Raven, either, she helped her ease down onto the toy, all the way down; just the sight of the toy disappearing inside of her had Anya wanting to moan, but then, when she looked up, she found Raven’s face so close to her own. Dark eyes, pupils blown and an excited flush on her cheeks, a grin on her lips, so tempting Anya wanted to kiss her – but when she leaned forward, Raven pushed her back, Anya had no idea when her hand had ended up around her throat but even that feeling was enough to make her stomach do flips.

And then she started moving. Slowly at first, Anya could see her biting her lip as she adjusted to the sensation, her grip around Anya’s throat still a little tight – but then it eased, and moved to the back of her neck, and the next thing Anya knew, Raven’s tongue was in her mouth. Her hands moved to Raven’s ass, pulled her closer, and the whimper that left Raven’s throat was so incredibly attractive. She could feel Raven’s hips rolling, grinding, rising slightly as she rode the toy, her body was against Anya’s and just about as close she could be, her hand resting on Anya’s breast while the other, having let go of her neck, rested on her shoulder, fingers slightly curled as though she were holding on.

As Raven began slipping more and more into her own pleasure, the control she’d at first commanded slipped away as well – soon enough, she was panting into Anya’s neck, gripping onto her shoulders as Anya controlled the movements of her hips, thrusting upwards with her hips every now and then to make Raven cry out; she’d regained her enthusiasm, slowly, but as Raven’s moans sounded in her ear she hadn’t been able to keep herself from grabbing her and starting to fuck her. She couldn’t resist the temptation, not when the moans from Raven increased in volume and number when she put her hands on her ass and took control, not when the grip Raven had on her shoulders tightened as though she were holding on for dear life.

“You made me come three times,” Anya growled, her teeth nipping at Raven’s neck, “What would you say I repay that?”

Raven whimpered a pained ‘please’ in response, but Anya was more than certain that she had no idea what she’d said. She was mostly just whimpering ‘please’ over and over again, she wasn’t really focused on anything else – she was begging for something Anya was already giving her, but she couldn’t stop the words from leaving her mouth, either.

When she came the first time, her nails dug into Anya’s shoulder, so deep she felt pain – but she kept going, pulled Raven’s hips back down when she tried to get up, growling a quick ‘don’t you dare go’ into her ear in a way that caused shivers to run down Raven’s spine and a moan escape her lips. And she did stay, she wrapped her arms around Anya’s neck and lost herself, she’d been the one making Anya lose herself not half an hour before but now she was the one whimpering and losing her mind; it truly did feel like she was losing her mind, she was resting her forehead against Anya’s but she wasn’t even able to open her eyes, her lips were parted but she couldn’t even bring herself to close the distance and kiss her, she couldn’t even focus that much – all she felt was the toy inside of her and Anya’s fingers rubbing at her clit, making her ache and tremble and feel as though she were going to explode.

“Come on, Raven,” Anya murmured, catching Raven’s lips with her own, “Come for me.”

A choked groan left Raven’s throat then, and she did really come – to Anya’s words, Anya’s voice and the words had been what had sent her over the edge, and her grip of Anya’s hair tightened so much Anya almost let out a complaint about the pain – but she didn’t, because the next second Raven had loosened her grip again. She shifted upwards in Anya’s lap, not to get away from the toy, but to bring Anya’s mouth closer to her breasts, her hand guiding Anya’s head down – and Anya, despite all she’d said about not liking being told what to do, obliged.

The way Raven pushed more of herself into her mouth with each thrust was enough to have Anya’s head spinning, and heat gathering between her thighs; just the sight of Raven had been enough, but now, with one hand on the small of Raven’s back and the other on her thigh, her lips around Raven’s nipple, sucking in a way that made Raven’s hand in her hair tighten again – it was so much.

“Anya-“

And then Raven came again, it had barely been a minute since her last, but she came again, her hand pushing Anya’s face entirely into her boobs as she cried out, trembling in Anya’s arms.

She half expected Anya to stop.

But she didn’t, she didn’t stop, she slid her hand back in between Raven’s legs again and started rubbing at her clit, her other hand tight on her waist and keeping her from moving away – Raven looked at Anya, into her eyes, and saw determination and what was almost a _smirk_ on her face, and she just…resigned.

A string of spit hung from her bottom lip, it fell onto her chest when Anya kissed her again, roughly and with demand, she was more than determined to make Raven come one more time, to one-up Raven in that aspect – she could feel that Raven was already close, she was essentially just extending her third orgasm into a fourth, and the fact that the brunette was so limp and yet so desperate in her arms just amplified her determination to make her come, one last time.

She could feel Raven tensing up as she approached another climax, she could tell she was trying to fight it – and so she pulled away from her lips, looked into her eyes, and growled, in the lowest voice she could muster,

“Don’t you dare fight it.”

For a brief moment, their eyes were locked, and Anya saw Raven’s eyes cloud over – and then she fell down, figuratively and literally speaking, she collapsed against Anya’s shoulder as she came again, her nails digging and pulling painful scratches into Anya’s back as she quietly whimpered, finally begging Anya to stop.

“No more,” she whimpered, despite the fact that Anya had already stopped. “I- fucking shit.”

Anya waited a little while before she lifted Raven upwards to ease her off of the dildo – she managed to work it out of her and off of the strapon-harness using only one hand, her other arm holding Raven up and against herself.

Raven didn’t object when Anya stood up, feeling limp and relaxed herself, and carried her to the bedroom. She didn’t object when Anya laid her onto the bed, nor did she say a thing when Anya crawled in beside her – she just turned around, lazily, and settled in the space in front of Anya, her face seeking comfort in the crook of her neck, her hand resting on the dip of Anya’s waist as though it belonged there.

“You just had to do me better,” she muttered, her finger tracing a line from Anya’s ribs towards her hip.

“I don’t see you complaining.”

“I can’t feel my cunt,” Raven sighed, surprising Anya with the crude word. “What, you’re frowning because I said cunt?”

Anya shrugged. “Surprised me, that’s all.”

“I don’t think you have any right to pretending to being a prude.”

“How so?”

Raven raised an eyebrow. “Remind me again what you were doing to me just five minutes ago?”

Anya sighed. “Shut up.”

“You’ve never fucked me like that.”

“You’ve never eaten me out like that, either,” Anya replied.

Raven looked at her for a while before looking away, but not before Anya had time to catch sight of a slight pink on her cheeks.

“Are you blushing?”

“No.”

Anya pulled Raven’s chin up, forcing her to look at her, and smirked. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m a great liar,” Raven muttered. “Most times.”

“You can tell yourself that,” Anya hummed, tapping a finger against Raven’s lips. “But I don’t believe it.”

“Shut up.”

“What, am I annoying you?”

Raven shot Anya a glare. “Maybe.”

Anya’s index finger still rested on Raven’s bottom lip. She was just slowly tracing the soft skin, not really thinking much of it.

“How’s Aden?”

Anya saw Raven look at her briefly in confusion before looking back down again. “He’s…he’s fine. He just learned how to blow a raspberry, and he won’t stop.”

“That’s cute.”

“It’s annoying,” Raven sighed. “But yeah, cute.”

“And is he the reason you’ve got green sharpie marks on your neck?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“I was drawing with him, he hit my hand by accident, hence the marks.”

Anya smiled. “That’s cute.”

Raven just sighed. “He’s getting older every day,” she muttered. “And I _really_ don’t want him to think I’m his mom.”

“I see.”

“I just…I want the gang to just disappear. Nia in prison, and her little circle of henchmen, and then I could-“ Raven sighed. “Nevermind.”

“Could what?”

Raven’s voice was quiet when she spoke. “Give him up, to a good family.”

Anya had figured that was Raven’s plan. She had guessed it when she’d learned Aden called her tia instead of mommy, she’d figured it from the way Raven seemed to be trying to keep her distance – and she could tell that she was feeling guilty for it, for her intentions of giving up Aden.

“It’s the best you can do for him,” Anya murmured. “Give him to a good family, where there’s two parents, who can love him as much as he needs to be loved, who have steady jobs, security – you don’t need to feel guilty about it.”

“But what if he comes to me one day and asks me why I didn’t want him?”

Anya sighed. “Thinking ‘what if’s’ wont help.”

Raven yawned and slid her hand down to Anya’s stomach. “That’s a smart thing to say, but my anxiety doesn’t hear you.”

She was mumbling now. Anya could tell that she was tired, she was feeling sleepy too.

Hard not to be tired when you’ve been fucked into more or less oblivion.

“Just sleep,” Anya sighed, shifting and pulling the covers up over the two of them. “There’s no point in worrying about it, not now.”

Raven nodded and said nothing, just sighed as she threw her leg over Anya’s and pulled herself closer.

“You smell like donuts,” she commented after a while.

“I do not.”

“You do,” Raven insisted, letting out a little laugh. “I _saw_ you drop one down your shirt, today. Or did you forget I was there?”

Anya rolled her eyes and put her hand over Raven’s face, knowing she was about to smirk. “The polite thing to do is to pretend you didn’t see something embarrassing like that.”

Raven just pushed her hand away and leaned in, her tongue surprising Anya when it touched her chest.

“You taste like powdered sugar…and sweat.”

Anya saw the frown on Raven’s face and let out a laugh. “Your fault for sticking your tongue there.”

“I never said it was a bad taste.”

“Just sleep,” Anya yawned. “I’m tired.”

Raven yawned too, and pulled Anya’s arm tighter around herself before finally settling down.

Anya never understood how Raven was able to fall asleep so quickly. It usually only took her a minute or two, and then she’d be fast asleep – so deeply asleep, in fact, that Anya could more or less move her around however she wanted without any fear that she’d wake.

She shut her eyes and focused on the feel of Raven’s head resting against her chest.

Soon enough, she was sleepy as well. She usually took a long while to fall asleep, or, at least she had used to; but now, with Raven in her bed more often than not, she’d found that she no longer had any trouble sleeping.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t like Lexa planned on ambushing Anya.

She’d seen Anya rush home, and had been intending on having a talk with her all day – but she’d been avoiding her, or so it at least felt to Lexa, and so she’d gotten in her car at half past eight and driven down to Anya’s house.

She knew Anya usually went to sleep after ten, and so she expected her to be awake. But when she didn’t open the door, Lexa got worried, and, after a long while of contemplation, got in with her spare key.

It wasn’t intruding, not really; Anya had given her permission, technically, when she’d given her the key – she’d told Lexa that she was ‘always welcome to barge in’, and hadn’t objected the times Lexa had taken advantage of that invitation. And so Lexa went in, quietly, slowing her steps down when she noticed the apartment was dark – but she saw Anya’s bag on the floor, and her coat hung up, and so knew she was at home.

She didn’t notice the red bomber jacket on the floor.

She didn’t notice the second pair of shoes, obviously not Anya’s, placed by the door; she didn’t notice the piles of clothes on the floor, no, she just quietly padded over to the bedroom, thinking she’d just find Anya there, alone.

The door to the bedroom was open, and Lexa wondered for a moment whether she should intrude.

She’d come this far, and, really, Anya _had_ been avoiding her. Now was as good a time as ever.

She’d already knocked on the door when she realized that Anya wasn’t alone in her bed, and when she did, it was too late – Anya sat up and turned the light on, eyes widening when she saw Lexa, and then, before Lexa knew it, the second person in Anya’s bed sat up.

The fact that she recognized the stranger was obvious to all three. Lexa was looking back and forth between Anya and Raven, mouth hanging open – but then her surprise passed over to disbelief, and then, anger, and before Anya could do or say anything, Lexa spoke up.

“Please tell me that isn’t Raven Reyes in your bed, Anya,” she demanded, her voice trembling a little. “And please tell me I’m hallucinating and that she isn’t _naked-“_

“Lex-“

“This is-“ Lexa snapped, stopping abruptly and shaking her head. “No, this is…unbelievable. I can’t believe you-“

“Lexa-“

But Lexa wasn’t having it, not when there was a third person in the room – she turned on her heel and stormed off, leaving Anya and Raven alone in the bedroom.

Raven was half-asleep and, truthfully, had no idea what had just happened.

Anya on the other hand darted to her feet and scrambled to get some clothes, muttering curses as she went, confusing Raven to no end.

“What- are you okay?”

Anya sighed. “No, I’m not okay,” she muttered, “Where is my fucking hoodie-“

Raven frowned. “Who was that?”

“My best friend, she’s basically my sister,” Anya sighed. “And I haven’t told her about you.”

“It’s not like anyone was supposed to know about us, but I mostly just meant the gang-“

“She hates everyone in Azgeda.”

Raven watched as Anya struggled to get her pants on, and sighed. “I see.”

“No, listen-“ Anya paused. “I have to go after her, I have to explain, she has every right to be mad and I promise I’ll explain it when I get back, but, just…I have to go.”

“Yeah, sure, go…”

Anya noticed Raven was tense, noticed her glancing at the door – and then, suddenly, realized why she looked so anxious.

“You don’t have to leave,” she said, offering Raven a quick smile. “I’ll be back.”

 

* * *

 

She left the house twenty minutes after Lexa had stormed out, and got to her house another twenty minutes later. The door to the apartment was opened by a concerned Clarke, who saw Anya, and without a word, stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind her.

“What the hell did you do?”

Anya sighed. “I- I can’t tell you.”

She hadn’t even meant for Lexa to know. There was no way she was telling Clarke, too.

Clarke sighed and rubbed at her temples. “Look, whatever it is you did, Lexa came home and _stormed_ into the bedroom, and locked the fucking door- she’s furious, Anya, whatever you did isn’t something little, I’ve never seen her like this-“

“I have,” Anya sighed. “Let me in, I’ll talk to her.”

“She told me I’m not allowed to let you in.”

“Clarke.”

“Wait here, I’ll go ask her.”

Anya waited in the doorway while Clarke went over to the bedroom door and knocked, quietly.

“Lexa?”

“Clarke, I don’t want to talk-“

“Anya’s here.”

“Tell her to go away.”

“I don’t think she’s going to leave.”

Anya sighed, but said nothing.

“Tell her to fuck off,” Lexa repeated through the door, her voice breaking. “She knows why what she did is-“

Anya sighed again, and, giving up on being polite, walked into the apartment.

“Lexa, either you let me in or I’m picking this lock, and you know I can do that-“

“I don’t want to talk-“

“I just want you to listen, ok? Just let me in.”

Anya heard a resigned sigh, and, after a moment, heard the door click.

When she stepped in, she knew what to expect.

What she saw was exactly that – angry tears on Lexa’s cheeks, fury in her eyes, balled up fists and just burning anger emanating from her entire being, but, underneath all that anger, fear.

And Anya knew exactly why.

“Listen,” she began, closing the door behind herself and turning on the lights, “This isn’t…you weren’t supposed to find out, like that.”

Lexa said nothing. She just got back onto the bed, curling up against the wall, her eyes never leaving Anya, the look in them demanding her to keep going on.

“And I _know_ you don’t approve. I know it’s not because of who she is, I know it’s because she’s in Azgeda-“

“I won’t have you dying, too,” Lexa snapped. “I won’t.”

“I’m not going to die, Lexa.”

“She’s in Azgeda! You’re literally- they’ve already killed two people that I love, I won’t have them take a third, not you-“

Anya saw Lexa was about to break, and so, gently as she could, placed a hand on her arm. “They’re not going to take me. Ok?”

“They already shot you,” Lexa muttered, wiping away a few bitter tears. “They killed Costia, they killed Nyko, I won’t have you risking your life like that, you’re not _that_ _stupid_ -“

“It’s not like I meant for it to happen.”

“What even is it? Hmm? Are you just fucking around with her?”

“I-“

Lexa’s eyes widened. “She’s the reason you’ve…oh my god.”

“Lexa…”

“She’s the reason you’ve been so moody, isn’t she? She’s the reason you’re so- so-“

“Happy?”

“Different,” Lexa muttered. 

“I’m happy, Lexa, that’s what I am,” Anya sighed. “And she’s not really in the gang, she- she’s an informant-“

“I know that, but you don’t know why she’s an informant, she might just be covering her own ass-“

“I know why she’s an informant.”

“Humor me.”

Anya faltered. “I…I can’t.”

Lexa huffed and looked away. “And here I thought I was like a sister to you.”

“Okay, stop,” Anya snapped. “You _are_ like a sister to me, so just…listen, ok?”

“What’s there for me to hear?”

“I-“ Anya sighed. “She’s not the devil. She’s not going to get me killed.”

“She might not even _know_ , what if someone from the gang sees you two-“

“They won’t.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Because she’s more terrified of that than anything,” Anya snapped. “You don’t get to judge her when you don’t even know what she lives with-“

“And you know, do you?” Lexa demanded. “Do you even know what she’s done?”

“What?”

“You’re telling me you have access to her rap sheet and you haven’t even looked?” Lexa asked, now watching her in genuine concern. “You, of all people? You look up the chemical compositions of your shampoos and you didn’t even think to background check your latest squeeze-”

“Why would I?” Anya retorted.

She hadn’t honestly even considered it. It wasn’t her place to pry, she’d figured Raven would tell her if there was something she needed to know.

“Well, if you’d checked, you’d know she’s a murderer,” Lexa shrugged. “I did, I checked her name the _second_ I left your apartment because that’s what a smart person does when-“

“A mur- what!?”

“She was charged with manslaughter when she was twelve, Anya, she shot her own mom and pushed her down the stairs, and she was in juvie until she turned 18-“

“Stop. Just…stop.”

Lexa shook her head. “Listen, I’m just…I’m worried. Seriously, you're not sleeping, you're burying yourself in work, and this-?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re involved with a _murderer_ , Anya-“

“She isn’t a murderer, you said yourself it was manslaughter-“

“The report’s pretty clear, she just had a good attorney and a lazy judge. It was basically murder.”

Anya sighed and buried her face in her hands, slumping back against the headboard of the bed. “Fucking shit.”

“I’m just…I’m looking out for you, okay? This isn’t okay, this, with her, she isn’t safe, and I won’t have you risking your safety like that, I _won’t_ -“

“Lexa, I get it, but can you just…can you be quiet, for just a second?”

She needed time to think. She’d known Raven wasn’t exactly innocent, but it was a different thing thinking she’d been jacking cars and stealing things than thinking she’d killed a person.

She also knew that she couldn’t keep the information to herself, she knew she’d have to ask Raven – just the thought of asking her that, of shattering what had been so good for such a short period of time, it just made her head ache.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Lexa sighed, after a long while. “I…it’s for your own good, seriously. I just want you to know what you’re- I just want you to be safe.”

Her voice was quiet and small, and despite the fact that Anya was very angry at what she’d said, she couldn’t be angry at her – she knew Lexa still got anxious over any threat to her loved ones, she knew Lexa still had nightmares about Costia, and about Gustus.

She had every right to be worried.

Lexa wasn’t angry anymore – in truth, she hadn’t really been angry, not after the initial shock of seeing the Azgeda tattoo on the naked girl in Anya’s bed; she was just overwhelmed with concern, and with fear, she wasn’t going to let Anya be stupid and risk her safety.

She’d made that mistake with Costia, and then again with Gustus.

She couldn’t bear losing a third person to Azgeda.

Anya knew that very well. She’d been there both times, she’d been the one to hold Lexa at Costia’s funeral, and then again at Gustus's, she’d been the one to promise her that the pain would eventually end, she was the one that still drove Lexa to Costia’s and Gustus's graves on the anniversaries of their deaths - she knew what pain she was giving Lexa with just a hint of any involvement with Azgeda, who to her were more or less the culmination of all that was bad in the world.

“Just trust me,” Anya said, quietly. “I…I wouldn’t put myself at risk. You know that, you know I’d never want to hurt you like that-“

“And yet, you’re fucking Raven Reyes-“

“But I’m being safe about it, alright? I'm not stupid.”

Lexa didn’t need to know that Anya had given Raven her keys just that day. Lexa didn’t know that Anya left her window open for her some nights, Lexa didn’t need to know that Anya kept her service firearm in the drawer of her nightstand, perfectly within Raven’s reach.

And when Anya saw her nod, just slightly, she couldn’t help but be relieved.

“But if you get hurt, I’m going to kill her,” Lexa muttered. “I’m not joking.”

Anya chuckled. “Then I better not get hurt.”

 

* * *

 

It took a long while before Anya was able to leave Lexa’s apartment. They didn’t talk much, it was more that Anya didn’t want to leave, because leaving meant she’d have to go home and face Raven, something she wasn’t so sure she was ready to do.

But she knew she had to.

She knew that when she drove home, she knew that when she climbed up the stairs to her apartment – and she knew, when she opened the door and found Raven sitting on her couch, that she had to talk.

She had to know.

She wasn’t so sure why Raven looked so wary when she came back in. She wasn’t so sure why Raven was wearing all her clothes, why she had her jacket laid across her lap, as though she were preparing to leave – she wasn’t so sure why, when she took a few steps forward, Raven looked at her with a mixed expression of fear and anticipation.

“Is…how’d it go?”

Anya sighed. “If I ever get hurt, she’ll hunt you down and kill you.”

“If you ever get hurt, I’ll be dead long before she finds me.”

“What?”

Raven frowned. “Nothing.”

Anya stood by the couch, unsure of what to do, or what to say.

She did have to know, whatever it was.

“What is it?”

“Did you…did you kill your mom?”

It wasn't like there was any subtle way to ask the question.

Raven’s eyes widened. “Did you look up my rap sheet?”

“I-“

“Why did you- don’t you trust me?”

“That’s not up for discussion here,” Anya snapped. “I trusted you’d tell me but you didn’t tell me you _killed_ your mom-“

“I-“

“Did you?”

“What?”

“Did you kill your mom?”

“I-“ The tension in Raven’s shoulders intensified, and she withdrew a sharp breath before answering. “I can’t lie.”

“Is that a yes?”

“I-“ Raven sighed, trembling visibly as she pulled on her jacket and went to the door. “Look, I’m sorry, this was- this was a mistake-“

“Raven-“

“I basically killed her, okay? And I know you’re a cop and I get that you don’t approve, I can see it in your eyes, you’re looking at me like everyone in juvie did-“

“Raven-“

“And I thought you trusted me, I mean I know I hacked into the system and got your phone number and shit but I haven’t even _asked_ about you and your life, I don’t know anything because I’ve been waiting for you to tell me, and you just- I was going to tell you, ok? But it’s not like I can just bring up my mom’s death just like that-“

“Raven-“

“We’re too different,” Raven sighed. “We- you have a good life. Mine is shit.”

“So?”

“So,” Raven sighed, withdrawing another sharp breath. “I’m going to go.”

And she disappeared, through the door and down the stairs, before Anya had a chance to get a word in.

Anya was tired. She was tired of getting yelled at, she was tired of people snapping at her, she was tired of fighting – and, in all honesty, she was tired of Raven’s attitude, despite the fact that she hadn’t displayed any feelings like this until that moment.

She wasn’t buying Raven’s ‘my life is shit’ bullshit. She was panicking, she was feeling overwhelmed, that much was obvious, and Anya knew she hadn’t been serious when she’d said ‘I’m going to go’.

It was a gut feeling, but she trusted it.

But she figured Raven needed her time, and so, instead of rushing after her like she’d done with Lexa, she put the kettle on.

 

* * *

 

Raven felt stupid.

She should’ve woken up when Lexa had come into the apartment, she always slept lightly when she was elsewhere but she’d let her guard down at Anya’s, and it had led to a whole mess.

Anya’s friend was furious, for what, she wasn’t so sure – but Raven knew she didn’t approve of her, of her affiliation with the gang, and, in all honesty, she understood. The nagging feeling in her gut, the thoughts that she’d thus far suppressed, they all had rushed at her when Anya had left the apartment, all at once.

She was bad news, she knew it, she felt it, and yet, she hadn’t been able to stop herself with Anya.

She’d spent the two hours Anya’d been gone working up the courage to lie to her.

And then she’d said something so stupid, and she knew Anya didn’t believe her – she’d seen it in Anya’s face, and she’d rushed out and left half of it unsaid, and now she just felt so stupid she wanted to hit herself.

It was an hour-long walk back to the waterpark. It was cold outside, bitterly so, and so Raven started jogging – she tried to ignore the nauseous feeling in her stomach, she tried to forget it altogether, but she couldn’t.

“She’s right,” she muttered to herself, “I _am_ an idiot, I’m so fucking-“

She groaned and kept walking, dug her nails into her arm and did her best to stop herself from crying.

Without Anya there, she was able to keep the tears at bay.

By the time she reached the waterpark, she was shivering with the cold, so much so that her numb fingers almost slipped and let her fall from a slide – the fall wouldn’t have been bad, perhaps a little over ten feet, but it wouldn’t have felt very nice, either.

She got to the hut and instantly turned on the one heater she had – it was small and slightly defective, and only provided a little bit of heat, barely enough to keep the hut from being uninhabitable. But it was better than nothing.

She could’ve headed back to the apartment, too, but she didn’t want to.

She wanted to be alone.

She stripped out of her clothes and grabbed some more, some sweatpants and a hoodie, and pulled them on before slumping into bed, the icy cold sheets and blankets making her shudder even more.

She pulled them all over herself and shut her eyes, intent on falling asleep.

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t get comfortable, there was something missing from her bed – no, there was _someone_ missing from her bed, and the realization made her groan.

“Fuck,” she sighed, standing up and going over to the chair to retrieve some pillows, “I fucked it up.”

She lined the pillows up and threw a blanket over them, so that when she laid down, she was able to throw her arm over them and feel like she was cuddling something – it wasn’t enough, but it was something, and, after some time, she did manage to fall asleep.

But it wasn’t for long.

Anya had waited a good while, at least an hour, before getting into her car and driving up to the waterpark. She had no doubt Raven would be there, and didn’t even consider the possibility that she wasn’t there.

It was late, she was getting tired, and she had a headache.

She wasn’t going to let Raven be stupid and leave just over some worries about her safety, or because of Lexa.

It took her a while to climb up to the hut, it was harder without Raven there to guide her in what was in actuality a maze of slides – more than twice did Anya end up climbing to the wrong landing, only to realize that it was a dead end, but in the end, she did find her way to the hut.

It was dark inside, and the door opened so silently Raven didn’t stir in her bed. Anya saw her, in the hazy darkness of the room, and noticed that she was curled up amidst the covers – only a little bit of her hair was peeking out.

“Raven?”

Anya called her name twice before she saw the bundle on the bed stir. She didn’t move, she didn’t even cross the threshold – she stood there, waiting for permission to get in, and waited for Raven to wake up.

Raven stirred a little, and then, realizing the door was open, sat up with a start. But when her eyes fell to the figure in the doorway, she relaxed, immediately, her momentary panic washing away and leaving her overwhelmed with relief.

“Can I come in?”

Raven stared at her for a moment while before nodding.

Anya got in and closed the door, and, after a few breaths, started talking.

“Okay, first off, I didn’t look up your rap sheet, Lexa did. She’s protective of me and she has every right to be, and I don’t blame her for telling me I was an idiot for getting involved with a murderer-“

“I didn’t murder her,” Raven muttered, her voice small. “I didn’t…nevermind.”

“But it was manslaughter. And I read the arrest report, same as Lexa did, but she jumped to conclusions. I read the records. It wasn’t _murder_ , hell, they couldn’t even prove you did it, and, from looking at what they had, you didn’t even do it – you took the fall, didn’t you, to cover someone else’s ass?”

Raven shrugged. She was picking on a loose string coming off the blanket, her eyes fixed at her feet, shoulders slumped as though in resignation.

“Raven?”

“Yeah,” Raven sighed, glancing up at Anya before casting her eyes downward again. “I- Roan did it, but he was over 18, I wasn’t, and they promised me they’d take care of me so I just…I said I did it. I didn’t know any better, I was twelve and I was looking at my fucking mom with her head cracked open-“ she shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“But you said _you_ killed her, earlier.”

“I might as well have,” Raven muttered. “Roan shot her, but I was the one who pushed her down the stairs, she came at me and I panicked and-“

Anya sighed. “What did they promise you in exchange?”

“To keep Gina safe.”

She was looking up now, shyly, and Anya could’ve sworn she saw a little tremble – but then she saw Raven extend her hand, and heard the quietest and softest plea, one which made her heart ache.

“Can you come lay with me?”

Anya stared at Raven for a while, and the brunette grew anxious.

“I’m sorry, about what I said,” she mumbled. “I…I panicked, I don’t want to leave or anything, I swear, I just-“

“I know,” Anya said, finally stepping forward and shedding her jacket. “I told you, you’re a terrible liar.”

She kicked her shoes off and went over to the mattress, climbing onto the bed.

She noticed the pillows and glanced at Raven with a raised eyebrow. “Missed me?”

Raven gave her a shove and grumbled something inaudible.

“What was that?”

“Just lay down,” Raven muttered, pushing Anya down. “I’m tired.”

Anya laid down and pulled Raven closer, and was surprised when Raven’s lips kissed her cheek – once, then twice, and then they trailed a slow line down to her mouth, where they remained for a long time, the kiss slow and languid and somehow tentative, as though Raven still feared Anya would withdraw at any given moment.

"Are you mad at me?"

Anya frowned. "No. Are you mad at me?"

"Why would I be mad at you?"

"I don't know," Anya shrugged. "Just checking."

Raven let out a gentle laugh and turned around, shuffling backwards so that she was comfortably blanketed by Anya's body; Anya reached her arm around her waist and drew her in, pulled her close, and pushed her hair out of the way so that she was able to rest her face on Raven's shoulder, her lips just grazing the soft skin of her neck.

"Do you want me to tell you about my life?"

"Huh?"

"Back at my place, you said-"

"Oh. I...I'm sorry about that."

"Sorry about saying the truth?" Anya asked. "Because I...I haven't talked about myself, you were right about that."

"You don't have to talk now," Raven yawned. "If you don't want to."

But Anya did want to. She rarely talked about herself, she rarely felt like anyone cared enough to hear about her shitty life, but Raven - Raven seemed like she did genuinely care?"

"Well, for starters," she began, pressing a kiss to Raven's neck, "My life's shit, too. Or was, anyway."

"Oh?"

And then what followed was a good hour during which Anya told Raven about her life, quietly, her voice smooth and soothing in her ear as she detailed aspects of her life that she'd never shared with anyone - how her mother had been deported all of a sudden when she'd been a kid, how her dad hadn't coped well with being a single parent; how she'd been put into foster care at the age of eight, how she'd bounced from one family to another, never daring to unpack her bag because she knew she'd be sent away soon anyway - she talked about the kids at school who had made fun of her handmedown clothes and her small eyes, she talked about the cat she'd had at this one foster home that she'd had to leave when the mother died unexpectedly. She told Raven, who was slowly slipping away and fighting to stay awake, about how she'd settled in with Lexa's family, how she'd come to them at the age of sixteen and how she'd never left, how she'd been adopted and how she'd had her chance of something good after all. She talked about how she'd gotten a scholarship to college but turned it down and gone to the police academy instead because her adoptive father had gotten cancer and the family had needed all the money they had.

She didn't really know when to stop. She slowed down eventually, and finally sighed, and said, "I guess that's it. My shitty-ish life."

She'd expected Raven to be fast asleep.

"Maybe we're not so different after all," came her comment, her voice thick with sleep. "If you don't count the whole matricide thing."

The fact that she was able to make a joke about such a topic while more or less half asleep caused Anya to chuckle.

"You're an idiot."

"You keep saying that," Raven mumbled. "But I don't think you're serious."

"Maybe."

"Can you stay?"

"Do you really think I'd leave?"

"I don't know, what if you had important work in the morning?"

"Tomorrow's Saturday. I can stay as long as I want."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i maybe should've cut this off into two chapters but eeeehhhhhh i'm too lazy
> 
> besides, if you're reading this it's too late, you've already read the whole thing
> 
> what'd you think of these two dumb gay babies having a lil bit of relationship drama???


	10. it's hard for us both

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well....i'm back  
> with angst  
> lots of angst  
> but it's great

“I’ll be back soon.”

She didn’t usually tell Anya when she’d be back. But something had changed, they had changed – she was way past the point of caring, she was too fully invested to just keep disappearing from her life, never telling her when she’d return.

She’d started with just telling Anya when she would call. And then, surprising even herself, she’d stuck to it. It wasn’t normal for her to be including someone else in her life, she was letting Anya dangerously close to her – literally, she feared for Anya’s safety, but couldn’t for the life of her stop. She couldn’t stop herself from wanting to get closer to Anya, couldn’t help herself, despite all her best efforts she was now spending most of her nights in Anya’s bed and thinking about her almost always.

It was with Anya that Raven felt the safest. And now that she knew what that feeling was, she never wanted to give it up.

“I’ll be back,” she repeated, looking deep into Anya’s eyes. “Soon.”

It was a lie in two parts. She didn’t know whether she’d be back, nor was she going to be back soon – but she couldn’t tell Anya where she was going, what she would be doing, not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t know. Roan had just called her, and when he called, she had to go.

She had no choice.

And so she looked into Anya’s eyes and lied to her, not wanting to cause any worry.

“You’re going to end up in my bed anyway,” Anya yawned, rolling over in bed.

Raven wished she’d be right.

* * *

It didn’t take long for her to find Roan. He’d asked to meet her in a park downtown, and, it being only 4am, Raven had no trouble getting there unseen.

“Took you long enough,” he grunted when he finally saw her. “Smoke?”

Raven shook her head no. “What is it?”

Roan took a while lighting his cigarette, and blew a puff of smoke into Raven’s face before he began to speak.

“I’ve heard some strange rumors,” he began, his eyes watching Raven intently. “And I’d like your take on them.”

Though not a flinch or anything of the sort appeared on Raven’s face, her nails dug into her arm – but that Roan did not see.

“Jasper says he saw you in a cop’s car.”

“I’m always in their cars,” Raven scoffed. “Any particular time?”

“Not in a cop car,” Roan said. “In the car of a detective, not on duty.”

Were Raven’s poker face not so immaculate, she would’ve given herself away in that moment. But she did not – she only frowned. “Ah. That.”

Anya didn’t know that Raven had thought moments like this over and over at least a thousand times. She had every lie prepared, every movement and every emotion thought through; she was not caught off guard.

“What exactly did he see?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?”

Raven shrugged. “I tried to deal with her myself, I swear,” she began, forcing a tone of indifference and annoyance into her voice. “That bitch – Faye, Feigh, something like that – keeps following me. Thinks I killed Maya. Accused me of it straight to my face – but no cameras or mics were on, of course.”

“Really?”

“Apparently they have footage of a girl who looks like me exiting Maya’s apartment,” Raven scoffed. “Which is ridiculous, I look like Maya on CCTV – any idiot would see that, they can probably just make out that she’s got brown hair and decided it was me-”

“They’re just trying to pin it on you,” Roan nodded. He was buying it, Raven could tell – she would get away with it.

_Terrible liar my ass_ , she thought to herself, almost letting a grin slip.

Almost.

“Damn cops,” Roan continued, not noticing Raven’s expression or lack thereof. “Getting in our business.”

Raven nodded. “They don’t know shit.”

“I’ll make sure she stops,” Roan said. “One way or another.”

“What, you’re going to kill her?”

What Raven said made Roan laugh, which, thankfully, prevented him from seeing that Raven had paled, just ever-so-slightly.

“No, she ain’t worth it,” he chuckled. “A warning.”

That was better. A warning would be something like a message on her car, something small and not harmful.

“But why were you in her car?”

“She told me she could arrest me,” Raven replied, without even missing a beat. “Wasn’t even on duty, but she flashed a badge and I wasn’t in the mood to be kicked around, so…”

“And then what?”

“She kicked me around anyway. Too bad there was nobody around.”

“She didn’t get anything out of you, did she?”

“Are you serious?” Raven laughed. “A couple of bruises? I’m not a snitch, if that’s what you mean. You’ve seen me take more and not even let a sound slip.”

“She tried, though,” she added. “But got fed up. Spat in her face and she shoved me out of her car.”

Roan rolled his eyes and breathed in the last puff of smoke before dropping his cigarette on the ground. He didn’t notice the breath Raven let out after saying what she did, he didn’t notice the slight release of tension from her shoulders – she was sure he had bought it, and could now relax.

“They seem to be getting closer to us,” he then said, leaning against a tree and crossing his arms. “Nia thinks we got a rat.”

“Does she? Who?”

“Jasper,” Roan shrugged. “After that whole…Maia thing, he hasn’t been right.”

Raven nodded. “Would make sense.”

“Come,” Roan said then. “We got work to do.”

Raven wished with all her heart that she could be anywhere else, doing anything else, but she wasn’t, and couldn’t – she was stuck there, though she was in no way restrained, and had to follow Roan to his van. She had to take his keys and get in the driver’s seat, and then proceed to drive him around, picking up people here and there, delivering packages and other things that she didn’t even want to know about. Boxes of guns, boxes of ammunition, counterfeit bottles of liquor and whatever else, the gang dealt in a large variety of illegal goods and it seemed that for that day, Raven would be the one driving the delivery route.

Most times, it was the easiest job. Drive somewhere, help unload, do not make eye contact with anyone lest they remember your features and come after you later. Simple as that. Sometimes there were guns out, though mostly just as a security measure than a threat.

Sometimes disagreements broke out. It was worse when Raven was alone – she was only delivering, she wasn’t there to negotiate any new deals, or pay anyone anything, but sometimes the people receiving the goods didn’t quite get that. This time, though, she had Roan with her, and he was significantly harder to intimidate.

“One last stop of the day.”

Raven let out a sigh of relief. Almost done.

“Turn left here,” Roan said. Raven caught sight of him pulling out his gun from it’s holster, and, while trying to keep a straight face, asked: “Where?”

“Right there. Keep the engine running.”

There had been two guys in the back seat who had already hopped out by the time Roan got out of the car. One stayed at the end of the street, gun in hand, while the other walked by Roan as they went up to the house.

Raven didn’t look. She didn’t dare. She stared at her hands on the steering wheel, tapping out the tune to the ABC’s, the only song that had popped up in her head right then. One, two, three…it was too quiet.

She had to force herself to not look.

There was just one shot.

At first.

One shot, and then, screaming – a woman, screaming her head off, definitely for good reason.

A few more shots, the sound of windows shattering, and all of a sudden Roan was back at the car. He hadn’t run, he never did – he knew he had to make his point. He wanted everyone in the neighbourhood to see him, to know that he did it – to see the gun, to feel the fear, and to know what his message was.

He walked slow, deliberate, gun in hand, and instilled fear in any who had the misfortune of looking out their window and seeing him.

Raven caught a glimpse of a blood splatter on his cheek before turning to stare into the street and driving off.

“Where to?”

“You know where,” Roan answered. “Drive slow, we don’t want to be stopped.”

“Sure.”

Her voice shook. She couldn’t help herself, there was only so much she could take – even though she’d known what would happen from the moment she’d seen Roan load his gun, she couldn’t have ever prepared herself for the empty cold feeling that had erupted in her chest when she’d heard the gunshot.

Someone was dead. Though Roan and the other two guys were unaffected, she wasn’t.

She hated guns. She hated what they did.

She hated the fact that every time she heard a gunshot she felt like she was little again, watching her mother fall down the stairs with a bloody hole in the middle of her chest, the dark blotch on her shirt growing by the second.

She hated the fact that the sound made her feel small and weak, and afraid.

The guys in the back were making some racket. It was clear they were high on god knows what, high and probably drunk too – and now, high on adrenaline as well, high-strung and waving their guns around like idiotic apes. To steady herself, Raven gripped the steering wheel harder than she needed, hard enough for her knuckles to go white, but Roan didn’t notice.

“Wait, stop. Pull back, go in there.”

Raven didn’t know what Roan was up to. This wasn’t anywhere near where they were going, they were near a park, there was nothing here that Roan could have wanted to see or do-

“Isn’t that her?”

Raven didn’t reply at first, not knowing she was the one who had been asked a question.

“I asked you a question, Reyes,” Roan growled, giving her a shove. “Is that her?”

The fact that Raven even managed a reply when she saw the figure in the street was miraculous, because it was indeed her – and by her she meant Anya, clearly on a run, clearly unaware that she was being watched.

“Ye-yeah,” Raven stammered, trying to act cool. “That’s her.”

“Come on.”

“What-?”

Roan rolled his eyes. “Come. We’ll teach her to be following one of ours.”

What happened next was a blur to Raven. It was as if her worst nightmare had come to life, except she had to be involved in it and she felt dizzy and nauseous and not fully awake – the two guys were laughing, it sounded like the howling of hyenas in Raven’s dazed state, and what followed felt equally as surreal.

It didn’t feel real when she watched Roan grab Anya from behind and hit the back of her knees with a pipe, hard enough to have her fall to the ground with a loud cry. It didn’t feel real when Raven saw Anya being kicked, or hit, it didn’t feel real – it felt like a dream, like a horrible, horrible nightmare, and she just wanted it to end.

The worst of it was keeping it all in. She couldn’t look nauseous or worried, she couldn’t stop them, she was as helpless as she would have been were her hands tied.

Or so she thought.

The two guys were holding Anya up, and Roan was having his fun, hitting her in the stomach while calling her a string of filthy names that made Raven ball up her fists and her heart crumple up as though each punch were a blow to her chest instead of Anya, pain and nausea mixing in her throat, bile reaching her mouth, feeling as though she wouldn’t be able to stand any longer, feeling as though she’d die-

Had he continued any longer, she would have snapped.

“Go on, Reyes, you can have your turn,” Roan laughed, stepping aside. “Hit her. I know you want to.”

_I don’t_ , _I don’t -_ Raven’s whole mind and body cried out against it.

“Do it, Reyes,” Roan repeated.

Raven looked at Anya. Until now, she hadn’t been able to look at her face, but now she had to – and what she saw in Anya’s eyes made her hurt even more.

_Do it._

She was looking at her defiantly, still trying to fight her way out of the hold she was in, but in her eyes Raven also saw understanding.

She understood that there was no other way out.

“What are you, scared?” came a mocking sneer from Raven’s left – one of the guys holding Anya up, she wasn’t sure who. “Hit her face!”

It was as if time stopped entirely. She wished she could just stop existing, wished she could just drop dead – the last thing she would’ve ever wanted to do was what she did next.

When her fist made contact with Anya’s face, she tasted blood in her own mouth. Blood and fear, disgust at herself, she would’ve cried had she not been under Roan’s prying eyes; she tried her best to not hit Anya very hard, and could feel Anya moving her head back to exaggerate the force of her blow, but that was of no matter.

She had hit Anya, that was a fact.

And it made her want to fall off the face of the earth.

Blood trickled from the corner of Anya’s mouth when she looked back up, pain evident in her eyes. But she looked fearless, too, she didn’t look panicked or afraid – which, in fact, she wasn’t.

She could see something they couldn’t.

“Hit her again-“

“Hey! Let her _go!_ ”

Raven recognized the voice, as did Anya – but Roan and the others didn’t. It was Lexa, she came running with what looked like a softball bat in her hands, and as quick as everything had began, they were off – the two guys holding Anya threw her to the ground, and Raven, still frozen and unable to move fearing she’d hurl if she did, was dragged off by Roan, all while laughter and howling echoed in the street.

The car skidded away not long after that, and silence fell, heavy and oddly comforting.

Anya spat out some blood and laid on her back, sore beyond belief. She wasn’t too badly hurt. She’d had worse. If anything, she was more worried for Raven. She’d seen the dead look in Raven’s eyes, she’d seen the pain and the hurt, and seeing her like that had hurt ten times as much as the beating had.

The bat clattered on the ground where Lexa dropped it, and the next thing she knew, Lexa was there, kneeling over her, looking furious and worried and prepared for murder.

“Are you okay!?”

Anya nodded. “Just let me lay here a minute.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Just bruises, I think,” Anya groaned, sitting up a little. “Clearly, they decided to kick me around a little-“

“She was there,” Lexa snapped, not fully listening to Anya. “She, _she_ \- I told you this would happen!”

“This isn’t her fault,” Anya tried to say, but Lexa wouldn’t hear it.

“That fucking-“ she punched her own thigh, crying out in frustration. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she then said, her voice shaking as she tried to calm down. “I just- they could’ve killed you.”

“No they couldn’t have, that wasn’t what they were doing.”

“But it could have- they could’ve killed you by accident!”

“But they didn’t. I’m fine.”

“Your lip is bleeding.”

“I’m fine,” Anya repeated, standing up with a pained grunt. “It was just a warning.”

“For what?”

Anya could’ve lied and said she didn’t know. But she did know. The bigger man had told her, right after that first punch.

_Stay away from us._

“It was for her, wasn’t it,” Lexa seethed as she wrapped an arm around Anya’s waist and helped her down towards her car. “They want you to stay away from her-“

“Not from her, they don’t know- they would’ve killed me if they did. And her,” Anya winced.

“You’re hurt.”

“A little, yes.”

“I told you this would happen.”

“This isn’t her fault,” Anya said, once again. “Seriously.”

“She _punched_ you, Anya!”

“Because she had to!” Anya snapped.

“I-“ Lexa shook her head. “I’m not arguing about this. We’re going home, I’m having Clarke take a look at you-“

“I’m fine-“

“No, Anya, you’re not. And you’re going to let me take care of you.”

That left no room for argument. Not that Anya would’ve had any energy for it – she just laid back and pressed a tissue to her bleeding lip, and didn’t say much the whole drive. She muttered a thanks when Lexa helped her up the steps to Clarke’s office, but, other than that, there were no words exchanged.

She didn’t say much of anything when Lexa got Clarke to look at her, either. When Clarke asked who’d done it, they both lied, a little – neither of them mentioned Raven, but everything else they told her.

“Are you going to file charges?”

“We don’t know who it was, where they went…” Lexa shook her head. “We’ll have to file a report, but…there’s nothing we can really do. I already called the station from the car to report it, but…”

“I get it,” Clarke nodded. “But, good news, you seem to be fine – but if you start to get woozy, or feel anything strange, just give me a call. Ok? Painkillers and rest.”

“See, Lex, I’m fine,” Anya smirked.¨

Lexa, however, just huffed, and insisted on helping Anya walk to the car.

“I care about you,” she said quietly as they drove to Anya’s place. “I don’t want you hurt. I don’t want you dead.”

“I know.”

“And I think it’s _stupid_ that you’re putting yourself in harm’s way-“

“I-“

“No, let me finish, please,” Lexa snapped, her voice breaking a little. “You…this…it makes me afraid. For you. And I hate it, I hate being afraid that one day I’ll get a call and you won’t be- be-“

“Lex…I’m fine.”

“But you might not have been!”

Anya didn’t have much to say to that. Lexa was right – if she hadn’t shown up, it could’ve been worse.

_Next time, we shoot one of you._

That’s what she’d been told. She hadn’t told Lexa, and wasn’t going to – she didn’t want to worry her any more than she already was.

“She’s not safe,” Lexa told her. “You…I don’t know what you see in her, but she puts you in danger. And-“

“I know, I know, you don’t approve,” Anya sighed. “I know.”

She looked out of the window, her head aching; she just wanted to lay down and sleep. She didn’t want to talk, she wanted Lexa to just calm down, and, most of all, she wanted to know if Raven was okay.

She wanted silence, and she wanted Raven. That was all.

“She hurt you.”

“I know.”

Anya knew Raven didn’t mean it. Anya knew Raven had been forced.

She wasn’t hurt by the fact that Raven had hit her. She’d felt the effort Raven had put into making the blow not be as harsh, though it did hurt, and she’d seen the fear and the pain in Raven’s eyes – she knew Raven had been in more pain than she.

Despite Anya’s grumbled objections, Lexa insisted on helping her up to her apartment. And then, she made her dinner. There wasn’t much talking – they watched TV, delicately avoiding conversation so as to avoid arguing or fighting, and after eating, Anya yawned and decided she was tired.

Lexa nodded, came into her bedroom with her to take a pair of sweatpants to sleep in, and then went back out into the living room to crash on the couch.

“You can’t be trusted alone,” she’d muttered. “What if you have a concussion and die in the night?”

“Then you being here wouldn’t change much, I’d die silently,” Anya had replied.

Lexa had just smiled and gone her way, leaving Anya to change in peace.

“Just call for me if you need anything, ok?”

Anya was exhausted when she laid down into bed. So exhausted, in fact, that she fell asleep almost instantly – but only for a short while.

She woke maybe an hour later to a breeze and the sound of her window closing, and sat up, a bit too quick, forcing a groan from her lips.

When she turned on the light by her bed, she saw Raven, standing by the window, looking at her as though she were afraid. She was trembling, she looked smaller and frailer than Anya had ever seen her, so much so that Anya immediately got up and went over – but didn’t touch her, not at first. She wasn't sure why, but Raven didn't seem alright - she seemed like a wounded animal, seemed like she would run if Anya did something wrong, and so Anya settled on just standing before her and looking at her in concern.

Neither of them spoke for a long while. Anya looked at Raven, and Raven – well, she stared at her feet, shoulders hunched, arms crossed, nails digging deep into the skin of her bare forearms.

But then, Raven broke the silence, breaking quite literally herself.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, “I’m so so sorry, I-“

“It’s okay,” Anya whispered, as gently as she could, placing her hand on Raven’s arm – but Raven recoiled from her touch as though it burned.

“I didn’t mean it,” she continued, now crying, tears streaming down her face, “I didn’t have a choice, Roan- he-“

“I know.”

Anya stood there, hand outstretched, careful to give Raven her space – all she really wanted was to pull Raven into her arms and hold her, but, in her current state, Raven didn’t look like she could take it. And the last thing Anya wanted was to force Raven into anything.

She’d forgotten that Lexa was in the adjacent room, all up to the moment that Lexa burst into the room.

“I heard voices-“

Lexa froze when she saw Raven. She froze, and then, went from confused to furious in the span of a second.

“Get away from her,” she snarled, rushing over and pushing Raven further away from Anya, pinning her to the wall by the collar of her shirt. “What the fuck is wrong with you, you put her in danger, got her _hurt_ -“

“Lexa, stop!” Anya cried, trying to pull Lexa away. “She didn’t do anything-“

“It’s her fault! The whole-“

But they both stopped when they saw Raven’s reaction. Anya had half expected Raven to fight back, or to at least get angry, to defend herself – what she didn’t expect was to see Raven crumble completely, not in front of a complete stranger. But she did, she covered her face with her hands and slid down along the wall, falling to the floor with a loud thump, stifled sobs accompanying the string of apologies that left her lips. She was completely weak, completely shattered, and had no strength left to keep herself composed. She just curled in on herself, hid her face, and broke down.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry…”

Anya’s hand on Lexa’s arm was gentle when she pulled her further away.

“Lexa, please.”

Lexa, despite all her anger, stepped aside. Despite all she wanted to say, and yell, and do, she respected Anya. No matter how stupid she thought Anya was being, she was still her friend. And if Anya asked her to do something, or not do, Lexa couldn't go against that.

Anya pushed her anger down, forced herself to be calm, and knelt in front of Raven. She gave Lexa a glance, a plea with no words, and, with a sigh, Lexa turned on her heel and left – or, at least, left Anya’s view.

In reality, she stayed in the doorway of Anya’s bedroom. She wasn’t going to leave Anya alone with someone she didn’t trust.

Anya didn’t care that she knew Lexa was still there. Her priority in that moment was Raven.

Raven, who was broken down in front of her, shattered to pieces and sobbing her heart away, unable to even look her in the eye. Raven, who had been forced to do something unspeakable – Raven, who, by all accounts, Anya knew was strong, though at the moment she looked weaker than Anya had ever seen her.

Even strong women have their limits.

“Raven,” she began, quietly, carefully, trying to get through to her. “Raven. It’s okay, I- I forgive you.”

But Raven didn’t hear her.

“Raven, please,” Anya sighed, putting her hand atop Raven’s. This time, Raven didn’t pull away, but she tensed up, and so Anya pulled her own hand away despite wanting to do anything but that.

“Please listen to me.”

“She’s right,” Raven sobbed, her face still hidden in her hands. “It was my fault. I should’ve stayed away, I-“

“No, Raven, please – look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Please.”

“I can’t,” Raven whimpered, curling up even tighter. “I’m so sorry I hurt you-“

“But I’m fine, Raven.”

“That doesn’t change anything, _I_ _hit you-“_

Lexa didn’t know this girl, this Raven Reyes – the little she knew, she didn’t like. But as she stood there, watching Anya try get through to her, and hearing the pain in her voice…she saw what she’d failed to see before.

Anya cared for her, and Raven, despite all that Lexa had convinced herself, cared for Anya. A lot. More than Lexa had ever seen anyone care for Anya.

Quietly as she could, Lexa retreated into the living room, to leave Anya with some privacy.

There was a long period of complete silence. Anya stayed there, sitting cross-legged in front of Raven, waiting patiently for her to calm down.

Raven, on the other hand, only felt dread and fear grow within her the closer it came to her looking up at Anya. She wasn't sure if she could ever look her in the eyes again.

When she finally did look up, she could only look at her for a split second before tears began falling again. She saw the bruise on Anya’s jaw, where she’d hit her, she saw the split lip and the blood, and it hurt her so much it was as though her heart had been shattered to millions of pieces all over again.

“Don’t look at the bruise, Raven, look at me,” Anya insisted, her finger pushing Raven’s chin up just a little. “Please hear me. It’s fine.”

Raven wiped away some tears and looked away. “It can’t be fine-“

“But it is, Raven, I know you had no choice, I know you didn’t mean it, and I just-“ Anya faltered a little, and then, after swallowing her pride, added: “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m not,” Raven whimpered. “You should hate me, you should leave me, I’m dangerous and I’ll just get you more hurt, I was careless and this happened and I-“ her voice broke, and for a moment, it looked as though she was about to curl up again.

“I’m afraid,” she added, her voice small. Frail. Quiet.

“Afraid of what?”

Silence befell them completely before Raven answered Anya.

“That you’ll hate me.”

Anya sighed. “Come on.”

She reached for Raven’s hand. “Come on, please.”

Slowly, Anya got up to her feet, and pulled Raven up with her. She cupped Raven’s face, making sure she was looking at her when she said, in the most gentle tone she had:

“I could never hate you.”

Raven made a slight movement towards Anya, as though she wanted to be held – but she stopped herself, and instead, glanced at Anya, still looking afraid.

“Can I-“

That was all Anya wanted to hear. She spread her arms and pulled Raven in, tight, as tight as she dared, pressing her to her chest, and she felt Raven’s arms wrap around her as well, pulling her closer – she didn’t mind that it hurt a little, she didn’t care at all, all she cared for was that Raven was close and that she could show Raven how she felt.

She felt Raven press her head into her neck and sighed in relief. This was all she’d needed, all she’d wanted – just Raven, close, knowing she was okay.

Anya didn’t know that Lexa was watching them. She didn’t know that Lexa, despite all of her best efforts, had been listening in – not to the whole conversation, but to parts. And now, she was looking at Anya, holding Raven, and realized that she was wrong.

At least about Raven.

Quietly, carefully as she could, Lexa gathered her things and left. She was sure Anya would be fine.

She sent her a text from the car before she left. An apology. She felt she owed that much to Anya.

(Lexa, 8:19 p.m.)

**I’m sorry I misjudged her. I don’t get it, but…she cares about you. Just stay safe. Please.**

She also added another text, as an afterthought:

**And I still want to talk about this. But maybe with less yelling…I’m so sorry.**

* * *

Anya felt Raven tremble against her, and knew she was crying again. This time, however, she stroked Raven’s hair, and back, and whispered words of comfort to her.

“I forgive you,” she said, over and over again. “You did nothing wrong.”

“I hurt you,” Raven mumbled, “I hit you, I hurt you – that’s not okay.”

“You didn’t choose to.”

“I could’ve said no-“

“And then what? Then you would’ve been found out, and killed, and I would’ve been too? You had no choice, Raven. I know you didn’t.”

Raven was hearing Anya’s words, of course, and knew them to be true – but the guilt and the disgust she felt for herself would not be so easily dissipated.

She let out a surprised noise when Anya suddenly picked her up.

“We’ll go sit down,” Anya murmured into her ear. “I don’t want to let you go.”

Raven’s heart leapt at that, and, despite still feeling as though she should run and avoid Anya at all costs, she let herself be carried to the couch and settled into Anya’s lap.

“You’re not…in pain?”

“I don’t care,” Anya muttered. “You’re staying right here.”

“I don’t want to hurt you any more,” Raven began carefully, but Anya interrupted her before she could continue.

“Oh, stop, please. It’s just some bruises and a few cuts. I’ll be fine.”

But Raven didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop thinking about it, simply couldn’t stop beating herself up over it. Her mind kept replaying that moment, the visual of Anya held before her, the cracking feeling of her knuckles making contact with Anya’s jaw-

"It was all my fault," Raven winced, a stab of pain hitting her again. "All my-"

"No it wasn't-"

"It was, Anya, it was, Jasper told Roan he saw me with you and I had to lie, I told Roan you beat me up a little and threatened me, I thought it would get him off your back and mine but I just made it worse, it's all my fault that he got the idea to-"

"Raven, please," Anya groaned, wanting to shut her up, wanting to stop her from beating herself up. "It's not your fault."

"It is."

"You did what you had to. You didn't mean for this to happen."

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are,” Anya sighed. “But you don’t need to be.”

She shifted a little, so that she was almost entirely laying down on her back, resting against some cushions and her legs stretched out on the couch. Raven settled between them, laid her head down on Anya’s stomach, and for a long while, neither of them spoke.

There was tension. Something unspoken, something felt but too fragile to speak of, too fragile to even think of – but there was something on the tip of Anya’s tongue, just itching to make itself heard, though she was not yet aware of it herself.

Raven was staring at a bruise on Anya’s hip, revealed by Anya's shirt having been hiked up as she laid down. She was only barely aware of Anya’s fingers lacing through her hair, twirling locks and running along her scalp – she was staring at the bruise, and trying her best not to vomit.

After a while, she leaned forward, just a little, and pressed her lips to the bruise. A gentle kiss, followed by another, she was so gentle and careful with her warm kisses that Anya couldn’t help but smile – and as Raven made her way up, kissing each bruise and cut as she went along, Anya watched her, completely mesmerized by the sight. Each kiss was an apology without words, and though Anya felt Raven had nothing to apologize for, she didn't interrupt her. She knew it was something Raven felt the need to do.

Her hand had fallen from Raven’s head to her shoulder, but she paid no mind to it, not when she was watching Raven kiss the cut on her shoulder and then come up to face her, dark eyes fixed on the bruise on her jaw.

Her lips were soft and silky when they pressed a kiss to the bruise her hand had inflicted. There was a moment between that and the inevitable kiss pressed on Anya’s lips – a moment of brief hesitation, wherein Raven’s eyes looked up to Anya’s, as if to ask for permission.

“Just kiss me,” Anya breathed, smiling slightly. “You won’t hurt me.”

When she did, it was as though she were kissing her for the first time. Gentle, tentative, she was even afraid to touch her – but after Anya took Raven’s hand and placed it on her neck, Raven gained a little bit more courage, and shifted upwards, kissing her again, her hand reaching the back of Anya’s head and running through her hair. It was a slow, deep kiss, and Anya quite literally lost herself in it. Raven did, too, she just wanted to keep kissing Anya and forget about everything else, she wanted to keep her eyes closed and just be there in Anya’s arms…but, every now and then, when Anya’s lips moved, she felt the cut on her lip, and a flash of cold guilt ran through her veins each time.

_I did this._

“Stop it,” Anya muttered, pulling away and looking at her sternly. “You were forced to do what you did. I’m not mad at you. Don’t feel guilty, please.”

But Raven just looked at her with sadness in her eyes, and Anya knew she couldn’t help it. Nothing she said would fully dispel the pain Raven was feeling – it would take time to heal, just as Anya’s bruises would.

She reached down and kissed Raven again, softly, and whispered a ‘I really don’t hate you’ in between kisses.

“Why are you being so nice to me,” Raven frowned, pulling away just a little. “You’re the one who’s hurt.”

“You’re hurt too.”

“But you-“

“What?”

“You’re…I don’t know. I feel like I should be treating you all nice, not the other way around.”

“You are treating me nice.”

“But-“

“No buts,” Anya decided. “You’re the one who was crying her heart out just now. You need taking care of.”

“I do not,” Raven grumbled, cheeks red as she tried to hide her face in Anya’s chest.

“Yes, you do.”

Raven didn’t like admitting it, but she did. She’d gone through her life never needing anyone, had prided herself on it – and now she needed Anya, depended on her, she couldn’t even imagine what her life would be like if she could no longer see her.

She’d been so afraid all afternoon that Anya wouldn’t want to see her. She’d been terrified to her very core, she hadn’t been able to think straight or even make coherent words – she’d left Roan and the guys the second she’d got the chance, and rushed to Anya’s, not thinking, only feeling; she’d needed to apologize, she’d felt like she had to, she had to tell Anya that she didn’t mean any of it. She just…had to make sure she knew that.

It still felt bad. It felt awful, she felt absolutely awful, and the feeling wouldn’t go away. It didn’t seem to help that Anya was right there, that she was in her arms, that she had told her over and over that she was forgiven – she heard the words, but didn’t truly _hear_ them. And it didn’t feel fair, she wasn’t the one who had been hurt and yet she was the one completely broken and feeling terrible; she should’ve been fine, she should’ve been the one holding Anya and not the other way around.

In a twisted sense, Raven felt that she wasn’t deserving of Anya’s care.

In a twisted sense, she almost wished Anya would’ve hated her. She wished Anya would’ve yelled at her, been mean to her, cruel even, because it would’ve made it easier to justify how she felt inside – but Anya had done none of that, Anya had been kind, and gentle, and it only made Raven feel worse.

Beneath her, Raven felt Anya tense up a little, and then shift with a little groan. She immediately tried to get up, but Anya pressed her back down.

“My back wasn’t upright, it’s fine,” she told Raven. “Just…stay there. Please.”

Raven looked up at her, unable to avoid flinching when she saw Anya’s injuries, and sighed. “I don’t want to make it any worse.”

“They’re just bruises. I need you here.”

Raven let out another sigh, and would’ve laid her head down had Anya’s hand not brought her chin up.

“One day, things like this won’t happen anymore,” she murmured, pulling Raven in, closer, touching her lips to hers.

Raven didn’t believe her, but didn’t bother replying. She just kissed her back, hungrily, desperately, she wanted to get closer though there was nowhere closer to go – but she wanted it anyway, needed it, she wanted Anya on her and her taste in her mouth and to just be overwhelmingly drunk on Anya’s whole presence. She wanted to take Anya in so thoroughly that she forgot everything else, she wanted the pain and hurt within her to be overridden by what she was feeling and doing. She wanted the way Anya’s neck felt under her hand to be more important than the nausea in her gut. She wanted the taste of Anya’s mouth to make her so dizzy she’d forget about the memories of earlier that day running in her mind on repeat – she just wanted to forget.

But each time she kissed her, she felt the cut on Anya’s lip. Each time, each kiss, was a reminder, and a cruel one at that – each time their lips met, Raven remembered what she’d done, and it twisted her heart in worse ways than what she’d ever felt.

When the first few tears fell, Raven was still kissing her. Her hand was in Anya’s hair, and she tightened her grip, as if to hold on for dear life – and Anya, not even surprised by Raven’s reaction, kissed her harder. Deeper, slower, she didn’t stop even when a stifled sob spilled into her mouth; she would’ve stopped had Raven tried to get away, but she didn’t. She just stayed there, silently crying, tears streaming down her face, kissing Anya with quiet apologies spilling from her lips. She couldn’t pull away for fear of Anya seeing her like she was – broken, puffy-eyed, a sobbing disgusting mess, she wanted to hide away and yet wanted to never leave Anya’s lap, and so resolved to simply stay there for as long as she’d let her.

After some time, Anya pulled away a little, but only enough to get Raven’s head to rest on her shoulder, cradling it with her arm, allowing her to keep her face hidden and doing her best to make her feel safe. She hated hearing Raven cry, hated that she was hurting, she wished she could’ve just wiped it all away – but she couldn’t. She couldn’t take Raven’s pain away had she tried, and so she only resolved to try and alleviate it in any way she could.

She kissed the top of Raven’s head and told her that she was fine. And then, she said it once more. And again. And then she kissed her again, stroked her hair, and held her close, her heart swelling with warm satisfaction when she felt Raven’s body slowly release tension and relax in response to her touch.

“I just want it all to stop,” Raven whispered, her voice hoarse, after what felt like forever. “I don’t want any of this.”

“I know you don’t.”

“I just want them gone.”

“Leave that to me, Raven,” Anya said gently. “It’ll happen.”

Raven nuzzled her face into Anya’s skin and sighed, breathing in her scent and trying to ignore the ball of hurt in her chest. “I wish I could believe you.”

“You don’t have to believe me, not yet,” Anya replied. “I know it seems impossible to you.”

Raven just sighed.

“But it’ll happen,” Anya continued, her voice sure and certain. “Raven, it will fucking happen, and then you’re going to be free and okay, and-“ she faltered, for a brief moment. “And then you can be with me.”

That last part she added with a hint of fear in her voice, as though she weren’t sure – which, in fact, she wasn’t. She didn’t want to assume anything. She didn’t want to pressure Raven into anything, didn’t want her thinking that she had plans for the future, not if Raven didn’t feel the same.

“I want that,” Raven whispered, resting her head back a little and tracing a finger up along Anya’s collarbone. “I want to be with you. I hate it when I have to leave.”

A smile crept onto Anya’s lips as though unawares, she couldn’t help herself, not when her chest felt so warm and her heart felt so happy – Raven wanted her, though she generally knew it, she loved hearing it too. She loved having confirmation that she wasn’t just imagining things.

“One day, you won’t have to leave unless you want to,” she promised. “You’ll feel safe, Aden will be safe, and everything will be okay – just wait. It will happen.”

She was so dedicated to making it happen that she felt confident enough to promise Raven that. She wanted to give Raven something to think about, something soft and safe and nice – something to look forward to.

For a while, they were quiet. For a while, they laid there, without a word exchanged between the two of them, not because they didn’t want to but because there was no need.

For a while, it was just the two of them. It was safe, it was quiet, it was comfortable - and there was a promise of a better tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mushy angsty gay bbys i love them so much
> 
> i'm @artsy-polarbear on tumblr, and don't forget the kudos and comments pls

**Author's Note:**

> don't forget to leave kudos and comments guys i crave validation


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